We use a randomized experiment in India to show that improved technology enhances agricultural productivity by crowding in modern inputs and cultivation practices. Specifically, we show that a new ...rice variety that reduces downside risk by providing flood tolerance has positive effects on adoption of a more labor-intensive planting method, area cultivated, fertilizer usage, and credit utilization. We find that a large share of the expected gains from the technology comes from crowding in of other investments. Therefore, improved technologies that reduce risk by protecting production in bad years have the potential to increase agricultural productivity in normal years.
Inadequate learning is an oft-cited friction impeding the adoption of improved agricultural technology in the developing world. We provide experimental evidence that farmer field days, an approach ...used throughout the world where farmers meet, learn about new technology, and observe its performance, alleviate learning frictions and increase adoption of an improved seed by 40%. Further analysis demonstrates that these field days are both cost-effective and have a greater impact on poorer farmers. In contrast, we find no evidence that selecting the first adopters of new technology in participatory village meetings has any effect on future adoption.
Approximately 30% of the cultivated rice area in India is prone to crop damage from prolonged flooding. We use a randomized field experiment in 128 villages of Orissa India to show that Swarna-Sub1, ...a recently released submergence-tolerant rice variety, has significant positive impacts on rice yield when fields are submerged for 7 to 14 days with no yield penalty without flooding. We estimate that Swarna-Sub1 offers an approximate 45% increase in yields over the current popular variety when fields are submerged for 10 days. We show additionally that low-lying areas prone to flooding tend to be more heavily occupied by people belonging to lower caste social groups. Thus, a policy relevant implication of our findings is that flood-tolerant rice can deliver both efficiency gains, through reduced yield variability and higher expected yield, and equity gains in disproportionately benefiting the most marginal group of farmers.
► Submergence reduces rice yield on 20millionha in Asia, worsening food insecurity ► The gene controlling tolerance (SUB1) cloned and transferred into several varieties ► Sub1 varieties had yield ...advantages of 1 to over 3tha−1 following submergence ► These varieties reached over 3.8 million farmers in Asia within 3 years of release.
Transient complete submergence reduces survival and yield on more than 20millionha of rice in rainfed lowlands and flood-prone areas in Asia. Poverty and food insecurity are concomitant problems in these heavily populated areas, because of the high risks and the lack of high-yielding, flood-tolerant varieties. Rice landraces that can withstand over 2 weeks of complete submergence were identified and the gene (named SUB1) that controls most of the tolerance phenotype was cloned and characterized. This enabled the use of marker-assisted backcrossing (MABC) to transfer this gene into numerous varieties that are popular among farmers, five of which were recently released for commercial use in five countries in South and Southeast Asia. Varieties carrying the SUB1 gene developed through this process had the same agronomic, yield and quality traits as their non-Sub1 counterparts when grown under non-flooded conditions, but showed yield advantages of 1 to more than 3tha−1 after complete submergence for various durations in naturally flooded fields. Furthermore, SUB1 was found to be effective at all growth stages from early seedling stage to about a week before flowering. Sub1 varieties have been spreading fast in several countries over the last few years, and are currently grown by more than 4 million farmers in Asia. This success is attributed to several factors, including the choice of varieties that are popular among rainfed lowland farmers for deploying SUB1 and its consistent effectiveness in different genetic backgrounds and environments. Other factors are a far-reaching network of partners along the research to adoption continuum, an effective awareness programme targeting appropriate partners, policymakers and farmers, and the additional resources made available by international donors and national programmes primarily to support the production and distribution of good-quality seeds and for strengthening seed systems. Further work is ongoing to incorporate SUB1 into more varieties and to strengthen the tolerance conferred by SUB1. Breeding varieties with multiple stresses is being accomplished by combining SUB1 with other tolerance traits/genes for wider adaptation in the less favourable rice ecosystems.
We use unique data on daily labor-market outcomes for Indian casual workers to study labor reallocation between agricultural and non-agricultural activities within rural areas. Controlling for both ...individual time-invariant attributes and time-varying shocks, we find that workers who switch sectors across years or even within a week can obtain 23% higher wages by taking non-agricultural jobs. We then estimate a discrete choice model of daily labor allocation that decomposes preferences for jobs into two types of disamenities: (i) those associated with job characteristics and (ii) those associated with location. We find that the first type of disamenity is 23% of wages for men and 38% for women, and the second type is 36% of wages for men and 31% for women.
•Rural Indian casual laborers who switch from agricultural to nearby non-agricultural jobs earn 23% higher wages.•Workers cite mobility constraints and job difficulty as two main reasons for not choosing the non-agricultural sector.•A discrete choice model shows that disamenities from non-agricultural work amount to 23% of wages for men and 38% for women.
Information frictions limit the adoption of new agricultural technologies in developing countries. Efforts to improve learning involve spreading information from government agents to farmers. We show ...that when compared to this government approach, informing private input suppliers in India about a new seed variety increases farmer-level adoption by over 50 percent. Suppliers become more proactive in informing potential customers and carrying the new variety. They induce increased adoption by those with higher returns from the technology. Being motivated by expanded sales offers the most likely motive for these results. (JEL D83, L14, L33, O13, O32, Q12, Q16)
Drought and limited availability of water serve as the serious limitation for rice production in rainfed ecosystems. Among the major rainfed rice-cultivating areas, states of eastern India occupy one ...of the largest drought-prone ecologies in the world. Cultivating drought tolerant rice varieties can serve as the most coherent approach to ensure food security in these areas. International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), along with its national collaborators, has developed drought tolerant rice varieties possessing high yield along with desirable grain quality. One such conventionally bred line, IR74371-70-1-1, has been released with different names in the different countries: in India as Sahbhagi Dhan, in Nepal as Sukha Dhan 3, and in Bangladesh as BRRI Dhan 56. This indicates the suitability of this line to show better performance across the wide range of environments. Sahbhagi Dhan is a short duration variety that has genetic drought tolerance and is more efficient at extracting available moisture from the soil. During drought years, farmers cultivating Sahbhagi Dhan obtained the yield advantage of 0.8 to 1.6 t ha−1 over currently grown long duration as well as traditional varieties. In 2012, when the paddy crop was hit by drought, Sahbhagi Dhan revealed the yield advantage of more than a t ha−1, which reduced to 0.78 and 0.56 t ha−1 during non-drought years of 2013 and 2014, respectively. Data taken from head to head trials during 2017 showed that Sahbhagi Dhan exhibited better performance over the existing rice varieties grown by farmers even under non-drought conditions. The important feature of Sahbhagi Dhan is its evident impact under drought and no yield penalty under favorable conditions over the counterfactual varieties of the same duration. Along with better yield under drought, the important advantage of Sahbhagi Dhan is the short maturity duration of this variety. This allows the farmers to advance the succeeding crop and creates an opportunity for accommodating an additional crop under favorable rainfed ecology, thereby enhancing the cropping intensity. Since the majority of the farmers living in drought prone ecologies are socio-economically under privileged, Sahbhagi Dhan, along with other drought tolerant varieties, can serve as one of the most viable and deliverable technologies for eradicating poverty from these ecologies dependent on rainfed rice.
Flooding is one of the major constraints for rice production in rainfed lowlands, especially in years and areas of high rainfall. Incorporating the Sub1 (Submergence1) gene into high yielding popular ...varieties has proven to be the most feasible approach to sustain rice production in submergence-prone areas. Introgression of this QTL into popular varieties has resulted in considerable improvement in yield after flooding. However, its impact under non-flooded conditions or years have not been thoroughly evaluated which is important for the farmers to accept and adopt any new version of their popular varieties. The present study was carried out to evaluate the effect of Sub1 on grain yield of rice in different genetic backgrounds, under non-submergence conditions, over years and locations. The study was carried out using head to head trials in farmer's fields, which enable the farmers to more accurately compare the performance of Sub1 varieties with their recurrent parents under own management. The data generated from different head to head trials revealed that the grain yield of Sub1 varieties was either statistically similar or higher than their non-Sub1 counterparts under non-submergence conditions. Thus, Sub1 rice varieties show no instance of yield penalty of the introgressed gene.
•Genetic gain for rice grain yield for International Rice Research Institute drought breeding program was estimated.•Positive trend of 0.68 %, 0.87 %, 1.9 % under irrigated control, moderate and ...severe drought achieved.•Superiority of new rice varieties over currently grown demonstrated on farmers’ fields.•International Rice Research Institute developed rice varieties can protect farmers from crop losses under drought conditions.
The complexity of genotype × environment interactions under drought reduces heritability, which determines the effectiveness of selection for drought tolerance and development of drought tolerant varieties. Genetic progress measured through changes in yield performance over time is important in determining the efficiency of breeding programmes in which test cultivars are replaced each year on the assumption that the new cultivars will surpass the older cultivars. The goal of our study was to determine the annual rate of genetic gain for rice grain yield in a drought-prone rainfed system in a series of multi-environment trials conducted from 2005 to 2014 under the Drought Breeding Network of Indian sites in collaboration with the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI). Our results show a positive trend in grain yield with an annual genetic yield increase of about 0.68 % under irrigated control, 0.87 % under moderate reproductive stage drought stress and 1.9 % under severe reproductive stage drought stress due to breeding efforts. The study also demonstrates the effectiveness of direct selection for grain yield under both irrigated control as well as managed drought stress screening to improve yield in typical rainfed systems. IRRI's drought breeding programme has exhibited a significant positive trend in genetic gain for grain yield over the years under both drought stress as well as favorable irrigated control conditions. Several drought tolerant varieties released from the programme have outperformed the currently grown varieties under varied conditions in the rainfed environments on farmers’ fields.
Farmers often buy water using fixed fees—rather than with marginal prices. We use two randomized controlled trials in Bangladesh to study the relationship between marginal prices, adoption of a ...water-saving technology, and water usage. Our first experiment shows that the technology only saves water when farmers face marginal prices. Our second experiment finds that an encouragement to voluntarily convert to hourly pumping charges does not save water. Taken together, efforts to conserve water work best when farmers face marginal prices, but simply giving an option for marginal pricing is insufficient to trigger water-saving investments and reduce irrigation demands. (JEL O13, Q12, Q15, Q16, Q25)
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