Regulatory Environment and Subsidies and It’s Impact on Rice Sub-sector in India

Agricultural growth has been largely responsible for India’s desire for long term food security for its rapidly growing population and making food affordable by price stabilization. It is therefore a big challenge for the policy makers to make policies which enable farmers to efficiently adjust to a less regulated production and marketing environment. Lack of an effective competition policy regime in India, has constrained the farm sector gains from trade reforms, and farmer’s capacity to adopt new technologies. Thus, well thought agricultural policy reforms are essential to enhance the agricultural sectoral productivity in India. The current paper is an attempt to understand the various regulatory provisions and subsidies which affect the production and trade of rice the most important food crop in India and the world.