Socio-economic impact of CA technology and role of ICT to improve dissemination of technology

SEP team CIMMYT

Key questions on RCT adoption raised by CIMMYT agronomists

(CSISA-SEP meeting, June 2010) 1. Despite economic benefits of new RCTs, early adopters are less. Why ? 2. How to reduce time lag in technology dissemination? 3. How do we overcome the social barriers? 4. If there are risks in CSISA Technologies how to mitigate and communicate? How to compensate the farmer for any loss due to slippages in technology transfer? 5. How to make efficient use of contact farmers in technology dissemination?

Adoption of RCTs: How different is the process from conventional technologies?

Input-saving (e.g. Tractor) and land-saving (e.g. hybrid seed) technologies: Are they perceived similarly by farmers? CA is knowledge intensive and complex system to learn Small/marginal farmers vs. Large farmers: How does the resource ownership affect adoption pattern? Local adaptations of CA practices (e.g. reduction in tillage after introduction of ZT drills), Technology-specificity. Understanding the constraints (information, social, financial, technical, infrastructural, policy etc.) is also challenging at times. A simple answer to these questions is that the answer is not that simple.

Categories of individual innovativeness

Early majority 34% Early adopters Pioneers/ 13.5% Innovators 2.5%

Late majority 34%

Laggards 16%

Source: Surrey, 1997.

Path of adoption of successful land saving & CA technologies

Period of rapid growth # or % adopters Successful Land-saving technology Slow start Successful CA technology

Time

Source: Rogers, 2003.

Association of scale of operation and adoption of ZT technology (Haryana- ZT Case study)

Major factors affecting adoption of CA

1. Education of farmer: +ve 2. Age of farmer: -ve (,,) 3. Farm size: +ve (,,) 4. Tenure: almost no impact 5. Off-farm income: almost no impact. 6. Experience with CA: + 7. Technical assistance: +ve (mostly) 8. Rainfall: +ve (mostly) 9. Income: +ve (mostly) 10. Program participation: +ve

What is Impact assessment?

Studies whether the change in well-being are indeed due to the program intervention and not to other factors. Problem of assessing counterfactual (A beneficiarys outcome in the absence of the intervention) Different evaluation methods:
Randomized evaluations (experiments) Propensity Score Matching Double difference methods Instrumental variable method Regression discontinuity and pipeline methods etc

Case study- Adoption and impacts of ZT wheat in West Bengal

Different studies conducted on ZT during 2009-2011 period

Conducted household survey among 180 households of Haryana (NW India) to study the impacts of and constraints for adoption of ZT wheat, and the results are compared with another ZT adoption study (IFAD funded) from NE Indo-Gangetic Plains Ambala, Kurukshetra and Karnal districts of Haryana formed the study districts. Other efforts on-going in CIMMYT on ZT wheat: CSISA baseline household survey (n = 1296) includes questions on awareness and adoption of ZT across hubs. Case-studies on improved zero and reduced tillage studies are ongoing in Bangladesh (power tiller operated seeder) and Nepal (direct seeded rice)

Yield (t ha-1) effect of zero tillage at different nutrient levels

ZT # mean (sd) # CT mean (sd) difference and significance % over CT sig*

N @ 0 kg ha-1 N @ 180 kg ha-1 P @ 0 kg ha-1 P @ 90 kg ha-1 K @ 0 kg ha-1 K @ 100 kg ha-1

17 51 17 51 10 51

2.9 (0.9) 4.5 (0.8) 4.2 (0.9) 4.1 (1.1) 4.6 (0.7) 4.1 (1.2)

16 75 16 57 31 66

2.0 (1.0) 4.3 (0.9) 4.1 (0.9) 3.7 (1.4) 4.0 (0.7) 3.8 (1.4)

48.2 6.1 4.2 9.7 13.7 6.7

0.03 [0.01] 0.08 [0.21] 0.58 [0.72] 0.14 [0.32] 0.03 [0.03] 0.30 [0.66]

Source of data: field trials conducted in Punjab and Haryana (2009-10 season) (Jat ML and the hub staff). *p-value from parametric t-test [from non-parametric Kruskal-Wallis rank test]

Impacts of Laser Land Levellers in North Western Indo- Gangetic Plains:

the use of a laser land leveller for land levelling enables higher yields and a lower use of resources and inputs like water and fertilizer compared to the traditional levelling practices In areas like Western Indo-Gangetic plains where the yields are tapering off and resources like water are under increasing pressure, such a technology holds tremendous potential for saving scarce water resources and increasing the stagnating yields Objectives: (a) Explore the costs and benefits of using Laser Land Leveler in Haryana and Punjab (b) Evaluate the impacts of LLL on (i) water use (ii) yields (iii) input use Sample size: 90 farmers in Punjab and Haryana each In districts where CSISA baseline surveys have been conducted Punjab: Bhatinda, Amritsar, Sangrur Haryana: Karnal, Kurukshetra, Yamunanagar

Some findings
It is observed that farmers of all sizes are using the technology including marginal and small farmers Cost per acre on average is around Rs 500 per hour inclusive of driver and diesel Average Time taken to level is about 1 -2 hrs per acre Most of the farmers in the sample had got it done in 2009: A recently expanding technology Private service providers are the most common source of laser land leveller; in Punjab some get from cooperative society as well On average, yield differential in laser levelled land and traditionally levelled land was reported to be around 2 qtls/acre in rice and 1 qtl/acre in wheat. Water saving: Each irrigation takes about 1 hours less per acre than before Not much change in the use of other inputs like fertilizer

Economics of using LLL in an average case

On average if we assume : - rice-wheat cropping pattern: rice in kharif and wheat in rabi - life of one levelling as 4 years - yield differential in laser levelled land and traditionally levelled land to be around 2 qtls/acre in rice and 1 qtl/acre in wheat - current MSPs of Rs 1100/qtl of rice and Rs 1170/qtl of wheat remain constant - discount rate as one - cost of levelling per hour as Rs 500 per hour and time taken to level one acre of land as 2 hrs on average, then The total cost of levelling one acre = Rs 1000 The incremental benefit stream of the farmer then is: (pR1yR1 +p w1 yw1)+ (pr2yR2 +pw2 yw2)+ (pr3yR3 +pw3 yw3)+(pr4yR4 +pw4 yw4 ) where yRi and ywi is the additional yield of rice and wheat due to laser land leveller in year i, respectively; pRi is the price of rice in year i; pwi is the price of wheat in year i; The monetary benefit or net present value of the income stream resulting from laser levelling one acre of land can be Rs 12, 480 per acre on average

Information constraints
CA contradicts so much of the knowledge a farmer has learned. CA principles and concepts are counterintuitive and contradict the common tillage-based farming experience. CA improves its performance over time. Hence practical experience with CA is directly correlated with positive attitude towards the technology. Least experienced farmers anticipated more hurdles with CA (Study among European and American farmers by Tebrugge and Bohrnsen, 2000). Public knowledge about CA is much lower than other ways of agriculture like organic farming.

Technology Adoption- role of literacy, social networks and ICT

Penetration of ICT in India

Source: Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, as on March 31, 2011

Opportunities that ICT opens

Evolution of modern ICT models in India

Pre-requisite
Identify farmers present information networks and their information needs that help them to mitigate production and market risk. Identify existing ICT based innovations in the agriculture sector, key players and the institutional arrangements. Characterization of current formal and informal risk management strategies employed by the rural poor in the Indo-Gangetic Plains (IGP).

Results from Scoping Study

Increasing mobile phone and mobile phone based services enhances the availability of content specific information and further help in improving awareness, education, better adoption of technology, better health and efficiency, reduced transaction costs, better market efficiencies and better climate linked risk management. Realising full potential of use of mobile phones will require significant improvements in the supporting infrastructure and also in capacity-building-particularly for small farmers-to enable them to use the information they access more effectively. The effectiveness of ICT in passing on information to farmers, particularly small landholders, holds the key to their successful utilization as a complementary dissemination mechanism for extension services.

Results from Survey- Demographic and economic characteristics of the surveyed farmers
Unit: no. of Farmers All Surveyed States 135 443 404 217 42 146 235 673 146 436 361 237 135 31 5 3 1.75 Uttar Pradesh 36 64 80 60 44 44 30 138 28 132 59 33 14 2 3 3 1.2 West Bengal 22 86 103 29 42 19 71 126 24 168 57 15 0 0 2 5 0.45 Variable Age Category (Years) less than 25 26 to 40 41-55 more than 55 Mean Age Education level (Years) Illiterate Primary schooling Secondary & high school Graduate & above Land-holdings Marginal (less than 2.47 acres) Small (2.47-4.94 acres) Semi medium (4.94-9.88 acres) Medium (9.88-24.7 acres) Large(more than 24.7 acres) Mean size of land holdings (acres) Average no of plots Average plot size (acres) Bihar 11 100 80 48 45 11 32 141 56 80 81 58 20 1 4 4 1.1 Haryana 20 93 87 40 43 34 41 146 19 32 55 76 62 15 10 2 4 Punjab 46 100 54 40 40 38 61 122 19 24 109 55 39 13 7 1 5

Notes: Only 6 females were reported in survey of 1200 interviewed farmers. Sample covers 240 farmers from each state Source: Own Computation from CIMMYT survey 2011

Pattern of Farmers Access to Basic ICTs across surveyed states

Unit: no. of Farmers

Access to ICT gadgets* Radio Television Landline Phone Mobile Phone Computer/Internet All Surveyed States 381 948 79 1188 56 Bihar 196 168 4 239 13 Haryana 85 237 19 239 11 Punjab 12 237 26 238 24 Uttar Pradesh 53 150 16 234 7 West Bengal 35 156 14 238 1

* Farmers have access to multiple sources

Information Needs of Farmers

Source: Mittal S, Gandhi S, Tripathi G (2010)

Information need/demand identified in IGP

Unit: Percentage of Respondent/Farmers

Information need Pre sowing Input supply Input prices Sowing Agronomy and farm practices Harvesting Packaging and storing Marketing No response ( number of Farmers)

Wheat 23.44 38.04 12.49 12.47 5.09 1.66 6.18 0.63 132

Rice 20.12 33.67 11.94 14.66 9.15 1.83 7.78 0.84 67

Maize 20.99 21.48 17.53 12.47 10.99 1.60 11.85 3.09 1040

Note: Multiple Responses of the farmers were recorded.

Farmers assessment on quality of Information

Other farmers are still the most useful and timely available source of information Farmers rank television as amore useful source in comparison to mobile phones but for timeliness mobile phones are ranked better. In the sample of 1200 farmers only 41 % farmers are suing mobile phones for agricultural information. As this percentage increase, we expect that usefulness of mobile phones for delivering agricultural information to increase.

Benefits of mobile phone based information

Unit: Percentage of Respondent/Farmers

States Bihar Haryana Punjab Uttar Pradesh West Bengal Total

Percent of farmers using mobile phone for agricultural information 51 65 26 45 17 41

Get better connected to markets 99.2 99.4 77.8 69.7 65.9 87.2

Getting better prices 65.9 79.5 82.5 69.7 48.8 71.7

Increasing Yield 21.1 42.9 49.2 29.4 34.1 34.6

Note: This percent of farmers is from the 41% of farmers, who are using mobile phone to access agricultural information (CIMMYT survey 2011), Farmers have multiple responses

Role of information in managing risk

Mobile based Information Delivery system

Voice (IKSL) Costlier than SMS Rate of technical failure is more Cant be stored, need to call back to retrieve information Timely delivery not assured

SMS (RML) Literacy Localised language Clarity of information- too short Compatibility with mobile handsets

Case Studies

Source: Mittal. S (2011) Scoping Study (forthcoming)

Thank You
s.mittal@cgiar.org