Understanding decision processes in becoming a fee-for-hire service provider: A case study on direct seeded rice in Bihar, India

Brown, Barbara J.; Samaddar, Arindam; Singh, Kamaljeet; Leipzig, Ava; Kumar, Anurag; Kumar, Pankaj; Singh, Deepak; Malik, R. K.; Craufurd, Peter; Kumar, Virender; McDonald, Andrew J.

doi:10.1016/j.jrurstud.2021.09.025

Cited by 15 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 22 publications

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“…Despite the diversity of resource types that relate to these challenges, a narrative emerges around the importance of the closure of informational gaps in addressing these friction points. Brown et al (2021c) highlight that this information is generally a major barrier to mechanization for farmers in Nepal, and it is expected to be the same across the EGPs. Similarly, the findings from this study highlight that if farmers have access to adequate information, most of the technological constraints related to CASI can be overcome.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 97%

“…The Decision-making Dartboard (DmD) framework (Brown et al, 2021c) was applied in this research as the underlying schedule development and analysis framework. The DmD breaks down important decision-making processes into six levels across four asset categories, which are then combined to examine the many factors that people evaluated in order to arrive at their final typology conclusion (Brown et al, 2021c). This led to the development of a semi-structured question schedule which consisted of seven distinct modules.…”

Section: Questionnaire Developmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Experiences With Conservation Agriculture in the Eastern Gangetic Plains: Farmer Benefits, Challenges, and Strategies That Frame the Next Steps for Wider Adoption

Chaudhary¹,

Timsina

Suri

et al. 2022

Front. Agron.

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While there are numerous studies that explore the agronomic and the economic benefits of Conservation Agriculture in South Asia, only few studies have explored the farmers' experiences and the drivers of its adoption. This study aims to learn directly from current users through exploration of their decision processes, evaluations, and experiences in extrapolating the concept for the broader scaling of Conservation Agriculture across the Eastern Gangetic Plains (EGPs) of South Asia. We analyzed a total of 57 qualitative and semi-structured individual interviews with the farmers who are currently implementing Conservation Agriculture practices across six locations. These farmers faced a variety of hurdles including hesitation in accepting and adopting the technology, technical performance challenges, information gaps, and subsidy/project dependence. To overcome these, respondents adopted various strategic approaches such as assuming the role of an educator by sharing their knowledge with other farmers in the community, changing mindsets for stover retention, adoption through self-investment, and opting for communal purchase of machinery to reduce project dependence. This led farmers to identify a range of benefits including improved socio-economic condition, increased respect in the community, and increased free time to pursue diverse interests and opportunities. Additionally, strengthened information networks such as improved interpersonal connection with agricultural universities, government extension systems, and local farmers groups have positively enhanced the uptake, allowing them to overcome further limitations. These findings provide novel learnings on how farmers overcome nine key friction points, and what this means for increasing the farmer uptake of new practices across the region, which are crucial for successful future interventions as implemented by the government and development organizations.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 97%

Section: Questionnaire Developmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Experiences With Conservation Agriculture in the Eastern Gangetic Plains: Farmer Benefits, Challenges, and Strategies That Frame the Next Steps for Wider Adoption

Chaudhary¹,

Timsina

Suri

et al. 2022

Front. Agron.

Self Cite

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“…For instance, while stover prioritization for livestock is a common issue with CASI globally (Kassie et al, 2015;Brown et al, 2017a;Brown et al, 2018), Chaudhary et al (2022) suggest that some farmers were willing to trade off stover for improved soils while others were not. Likewise, machinery access remains a challenge for all ZT users in the EGP (Karki et al, 2021;Brown et al, 2021c), and a shortfall of skilled operators is widespread throughout the EGP. This often results in poor technological performance, which impedes technological success (Brown et al, 2021c) and ultimately results in negative evaluation for dis-users.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Agricultural investment costs ranging from herbicide purchase, labor for weed control with limited perceived benefits of CASI and its implications to their livelihoods hinder adoption (Ngoma, 2018;Senyolo et al, 2018;Brown et al, 2020). In addition to the above, trade-offs associated with CASI use including limited access to machinery, competing uses for crop residues and a lack of skilled manpower further limit adoption (Hellin et al, 2013;Bhan and Behera, 2014;Rodenburg et al, 2020;Brown et al, 2021aBrown et al, , 2021bBrown et al, , 2021c.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Contextual realities and poverty traps: why South Asian smallholder farmers negatively evaluate conservation agriculture

Chaudhary¹,

Timsina

Karki³

et al. 2023

Renew. Agric. Food Syst.

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Conservation agriculture-based sustainable intensification (CASI) is gaining prominence as an agricultural pathway to poverty reduction and enhancement of sustainable food systems among government and development actors in the Eastern Gangetic Plains (EGP) of South Asia. Despite substantial investment in research and extension programs and a growing understanding of the agronomic, economic and labor-saving benefits of CASI, uptake remains limited. This study explores farmer experiences and perspectives to establish why farmers choose not to implement CASI systems despite a strong body of recent scientific evidence establishing the benefits of them doing so. Through thematic coding of semi-structured interviews, key constraints are identified, which establishes a narrative that current households' resources are insufficient to enable practice change, alongside limited supporting structures for resource supplementation. Such issues create a dependency on subsidies and outside support, a situation that is likely to impact any farming system change given the low-risk profiles of farmers and their limited resource base. This paper hence sets out broad implications for creating change in smallholder farming systems in order to promote the adoption of sustainable agricultural technologies in resource-poor smallholder contexts, especially with regard to breaking the profound poverty cycles that smallholder farmers find themselves in and which are unlikely to be broken by the current set of technologies promoted to them.

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“…While recent efforts have prioritised different service provision models, there are existing gaps that require attention to increase machinery uptake. Many CHCs are mostly situated in major towns and are unable to provide services beyond a certain area (Brown, Samaddar, et al, 2021). In addition, there are issues regarding sustainable and efficient management of machinery under collective ownership in Nepal and require a reassessment of available support programmes and a more targeted approach (Paudel et al, 2021; Takeshima & Justice, 2020).…”

Section: Implications For Nepal's Farm Mechanisation Strategymentioning

confidence: 99%

Farm mechanisation in Nepal's Terai Region: Policy context, drivers and options

Karki¹,

Sharma²,

Brown³

2021

J of Intl Development

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Nepal Terai has historically had higher rates of mechanisation compared to the rest of the country and has the potential to expand and intensify its constrained agricultural productivity through agricultural mechanisation for smallholder farmers. This review provides a timely reflection on the pathways in which mechanisation has occurred in India and Bangladesh to inform the development of future mechanisation pathways and policies for Nepal Terai. Findings highlight the need to prioritise agricultural research, improve credit access, invest in human resources, incentivise local manufacturing and reassess extension services to address the needs of the farmers in Nepal Terai.

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Understanding decision processes in becoming a fee-for-hire service provider: A case study on direct seeded rice in Bihar, India

Cited by 15 publications

References 22 publications

Experiences With Conservation Agriculture in the Eastern Gangetic Plains: Farmer Benefits, Challenges, and Strategies That Frame the Next Steps for Wider Adoption

Experiences With Conservation Agriculture in the Eastern Gangetic Plains: Farmer Benefits, Challenges, and Strategies That Frame the Next Steps for Wider Adoption

Contextual realities and poverty traps: why South Asian smallholder farmers negatively evaluate conservation agriculture

Farm mechanisation in Nepal's Terai Region: Policy context, drivers and options

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