Patil Vikram, Veettil Prakashan Chellattan
Inclusive Markets & Value Chains Research Unit, International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), ISARC, Varanasi, India.
Inclusive Markets & Value Chains Research Unit, International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), IRRI-India Office, CG Block, NASC Complex, DPS Marg, New Delhi, 110012 India.
Agric Food Secur. 2024;13(1):50. doi: 10.1186/s40066-024-00497-x. Epub 2024 Nov 28.
Agricultural production is inherently risky, as farmers are exposed to multiple stresses. The adoption of improved agricultural practices could become a key coping strategy to sustain production in such a risky environment. As several technologies are being developed and disseminated along this line, it is important to examine the factors influencing farmers' adoption of these strategies and their impact on productivity. Using survey data of rice growing farmers from eastern states of India, we tested how farmers' risk attitudes influence their decisions to adopt improved agricultural practices and whether the adoption has any influence on rice productivity.
Risk-seeking farmers are more likely to adopt mechanization, whereas risk-averse farmers are more likely to adopt stress-tolerant rice varieties (STRVs), which represent a low-/no-capital-cost improved technology. Adoption of these improved technologies has resulted in productivity gains. Yet, their overall adoption is (s)low in India and other developing countries, presenting a broader challenge of suboptimal productivity and requiring deeper policy engagement.
Adoption of STRVs and mechanization has been found to have positive impact on rice productivity. These two agricultural technologies, as our results reveal, are adopted by two distinct categories of farmers depending on their risk attitude. However, both technologies could play a complementary role increasing and stabilizing rice production of farmers, and that is where scope for policy lies to bridge this gap. Targeted policy measures such as subsidizing the purchase of machineries for establishment of custom hiring centers, implementing effective extension mechanisms, and integrating STRVs in the seed systems to enhance physical and economic access to these technologies, could significantly increase their adoption and consequently improve productivity and income of farmers.
农业生产具有内在风险，因为农民面临多种压力。采用改良农业做法可能成为在这种风险环境下维持生产的关键应对策略。随着沿此方向开发和推广了多种技术，研究影响农民采用这些策略的因素及其对生产力的影响非常重要。利用印度东部各邦水稻种植农户的调查数据，我们测试了农民的风险态度如何影响他们采用改良农业做法的决定，以及这种采用是否对水稻生产力有任何影响。
寻求风险的农民更有可能采用机械化，而规避风险的农民更有可能采用耐逆水稻品种（STRVs），这是一种低资本成本或无资本成本的改良技术。采用这些改良技术带来了生产力的提高。然而，在印度和其他发展中国家，它们的总体采用率较低，这带来了生产力次优的更广泛挑战，需要更深入的政策参与。
已发现采用耐逆水稻品种和机械化对水稻生产力有积极影响。正如我们的结果所示，这两种农业技术被两类不同的农民采用，这取决于他们的风险态度。然而，这两种技术都可以在增加和稳定农民水稻产量方面发挥互补作用，这就是政策弥合这一差距的空间所在。有针对性的政策措施，如补贴购买用于建立定制租赁中心的机械、实施有效的推广机制，以及将耐逆水稻品种纳入种子系统以增强对这些技术的实际和经济获取，可显著提高其采用率，从而提高农民的生产力和收入。
