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This article examines the role of producer organisations in improving service delivery to producers/farmers. It observes that access to technology and other farm advisory services for producers within a producer organisation or partner arrangement is much more effective than for non-partners. Perceptible changes occurred in terms of increase in net incomes for partners compared to non-partners, even though increases in yield were not always observed. Benefits arose mainly because of increase in market access, marketable surplus and bargaining power for producer organisations. Such encouraging findings support arguments for greater policy support to leverage the functioning of producer organisations for their sustenance and replication.

With more than 820 million undernourished people living in rural areas of low-and middle-income countries (LMICs), ending hunger and ensuring access to food by all is a global priority. In the past few decades, the adoption of technological innovations in the agricultural sector and related crop yield improvements have not led to expected improvements in the nutritional status of rural households in many LMICs. The increased energy expenditure associated with the adoption of productivity-enhancing innovations may provide an important explanation of the disconnect between agricultural productivity enhancements and improved nutritional outcomes. We develop a methodology for generating reliable livelihood energy/calorie expenditure profiles for rural agricultural households using research-grade accelerometer devices. We integrate the data on physical activity and energy expenditure in rural households with data on time-use and food intakes to generate a data set that provides a unique window into rural livelihoods. This can be a valuable resource to analyse agriculture-nutrition impact pathways and improve the welfare of rural and agricultural households.

This anthology of essays, envisaging how gender, class, caste and community identities evolve on the platform of the household, is based on contributions to a conference on this theme in February 2011. The context is set mainly in India's pre-colonial period with a wide panorama ranging from archaeology, Sanskrit epics, compositions from religious traditions, medical literature, early Tamil texts and official documents.The editor's introductory chapter weaves together the broad themes that run through the essays. She reviews the concerns related to membership within households in the context of kinship ties and co-residence, especially the significance attached to both the rituals and institution of marriage. She also observes other points of recruitment into households, specifically through birth and adoption, and examines their diverse implications and potential conflicts in households in the past. Although the spatial and chronological range of this volume is varied, ranging from site-specific to transcontinental frames, what is significant is the ways in which concerns were shared about the questions of inclusion and exclusion raised both implicitly and explicitly in shaping the readings of the texts.The book is organised into six parts. Part I, 'Households Matter', presents an essay that uses archaeological evidence to understand household practices. The authors, drawing attention to Indor Khera in India-a site where they have conducted excavations for several years-throw light on the fluidity of individual household dynamics and their perpetual state of transition. Gitanjali L. Konrad's poem, which introduces the volume in the beginning, is inspired by these archaeological discoveries and forms an epitome of this chapter.The theme of Part II is the 'meanings of motherhood'. Martha Ann Selby highlights the conceptual position of women as the objects of practice and also as medical actors in the medical literature in Sanskrit. In the Uttarakanda's construction of Sita's pregnancy, Sally J. Sutherland derives disturbing insights of Sita's impregnation and pregnancy which paint a portrait of transition from wifehood to motherhood and the underlying transition from sexualised wife to asexual mother. Monica Juneja portraits motherhood through a different strategy, with a transcultural journey of how the breastfeeding mother became an iconic medium with longue durée effects.Part III, 'Regulations and Representations', contains three essays trying to understand the ways and means of making sense of normative texts, analysing their contents as well as the possible implications of their provisions. Jaya Tyagi traces the dynamics of early Indian households in terms of their domesticity, patronage and propriety in the Manavadharmashastra and the Matsya Purana. Uma Chakravarthy, through the characters of Kunti and Karna in the Mahabharata, analyses the socially