Mechanizing Agriculture

Abstract

and Forum RIDGE for helpful comments. The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Bureau of Economic Research.NBER working papers are circulated for discussion and comment purposes. They have not been peer-reviewed or been subject to the review by the NBER Board of Directors that accompanies official NBER publications.

Revisiting the relationship between farm mechanization and labour requirement in India

“…However, the consequences of mechanization on employment can differ depending on the operation that is being mechanized and the level of agricultural productivity (Afridi et al, 2020). Mechanization can have a substitution effect by directly replacing labour in certain activities, or it could have a scale effect by increasing demand by improving overall productivity or expansion of cultivated land (Caunedo & Kala, 2021). Using experimental evidence, Caunedo and Kala (2021) show the impact of subsidizing access to rental services on labour requirement, while Afridi et al (2020), use an instrumental variable approach to analyse how the use of tractors and power tillers during the tilling stage of land preparation affects labour use by gender 1 in the period 1999-2011.…”

“…Mechanization can have a substitution effect by directly replacing labour in certain activities, or it could have a scale effect by increasing demand by improving overall productivity or expansion of cultivated land (Caunedo & Kala, 2021). Using experimental evidence, Caunedo and Kala (2021) show the impact of subsidizing access to rental services on labour requirement, while Afridi et al (2020), use an instrumental variable approach to analyse how the use of tractors and power tillers during the tilling stage of land preparation affects labour use by gender 1 in the period 1999-2011. Furthermore, Caunedo and Kala (2021) estimate the intent to treat estimates where their main measure of mechanization identifies the impact of being given a farm machine rental subsidy voucher.…”

“…Using experimental evidence, Caunedo and Kala (2021) show the impact of subsidizing access to rental services on labour requirement, while Afridi et al (2020), use an instrumental variable approach to analyse how the use of tractors and power tillers during the tilling stage of land preparation affects labour use by gender 1 in the period 1999-2011. Furthermore, Caunedo and Kala (2021) estimate the intent to treat estimates where their main measure of mechanization identifies the impact of being given a farm machine rental subsidy voucher. They find that the rental subsidy programme declined female hired labour requirement as well as female and male family labour requirement on farm.…”

Land Rental Markets: Experimental Evidence from Kenya

“…2 Recent papers on rental markets of other factors include Bassi et al (2021), which shows that rental market interactions allow small firms in Uganda to increase their effective scale and mechanize production, and Caunedo and Kala (2021), which presents the results of an experiment that subsidizes access to agricultural rental equipment markets in India.…”

Gender and mechanization: Evidence from Indian agriculture

“…33 Pingali (2007) provides a summary of studies that assess the impact of mechanization on labor and finds that labor use falls by almost 50% or more across farms that do not use a tractor versus those that do. Although there are no estimates available for female labor use in the literature, in a recent paper Caunedo and Kala (2021) examine the effect of providing vouchers for hiring farm machinery. Their intent to treat estimates of offering a voucher on female labor use are around 14% on average, whereas offering the voucher itself led to an increase in hours of machinery used on the farm by 15%.…”