Social inclusion increases with time for zero-tillage wheat in the Eastern Indo-Gangetic Plains

Abstract

HighlightsFarmers in Bihar access zero-tillage (ZT) technology mostly via custom-hiring services.Scale bias in ZT use declined as farmer awareness increased and ZT services expanded.Land fragmentation replaced landholding size as a significant adoption determinant.Farmers with small but contiguous landholdings have gained access to quality ZT services.Private sector-based mechanization service provision can lead to socially inclusive outcomes.

Social-ecological analysis of timely rice planting in Eastern India

“…A strong agricultural goods and service economy (i.e., market integration) appears to contribute to farmers’ ability to plant early. Specifically, our data corroborate evidence that access to labor, tillage, and subsidized seed and fertilizer markets frequently prevents timely planting and requires innovative solutions (Keil et al 2019 ; Shah et al 2018 ). Strategies to strengthen land preparation machinery service markets could consider the spatial gradients of commercial orientation and mechanization both at the community level and at the household level.…”

“…Thus, early planting in a village is not only determined by access to resources, inputs, and technologies managed by single farmers. Rather, timely planting also depends on the ability and desire for synchronous early planting of neighboring farmers—a challenge further complicated by high and increasing levels of land fragmentation in the region (Keil et al 2019 ).…”

“…But, erratic monsoon patterns increasingly cause both floods and droughts in close spatio-temporal proximity, threatening farmers’ productivity. Research over the last decades has shown that timely planting of both rice and wheat is one of the most important response options that farmers in the region have to build resilient agroecosystems amidst changing climate regimes (Keil et al 2019 ; Ortiz et al 2008 ; Singh et al 2019 ). At the system level of rice-wheat cropping patterns in South Asia, timely planting of rice facilitates the efficient use of monsoon season rainfall and, just as importantly, planting of wheat within the first 3 weeks of November.…”

Zero-tillage wheat provides stable yield and economic benefits under diverse growing season climates in the Eastern Indo-Gangetic Plains

“…12. cf. Keil et al (2019) for an in-depth analysis and discussion of the development of the social inclusiveness of ZT technology in Bihar. 13.…”

Farm labor, non-farm activities, and poverty alleviation: an ethnography on how upland farmers meet farm demands and sustain household needs.

“…Where a piece of information needs to be quantified, especially on the time-use of labor according to the different agricultural tasks, estimation technique was used which made research participants recall and estimate the value of such information. This technique has an inherent weakness; nevertheless, this is the least demanding form of information collection compared to other techniques, e.g., diary method (Bernard & Killworth, 1993;Keil et al, 2019;Paolisso & Hames, 2010). Descriptive statistics, e.g., frequency count, mean, and percentage, was used in the analysis.…”