Smallholder farmers' willingness to pay for scale-appropriate farm mechanization: Evidence from the mid-hills of Nepal

Discourses on the adoption of the Barsha pump: A Q methodology study in Nepal and Indonesia

Improved water management is an important strategy to support smallholder farming, and thus to foster food security and improved livelihoods. Within this strategy, technologies like water pumps, especially those operating on renewable energies, are key, as they are more environmentally sound and affordable alternatives. Their successful and sustained uptake is a complex process—largely dependent on the adopter and its surrounding context—usually overlooked by traditional linear technology-transfer approaches. By means of Q methodology, we explored cross-cultural discourses around the adoption of the Barsha pump (BP), a self-reliant hydro-mechanical device that does not require any external input than flowing water to operate. We administered the method to 43 (non-)farmer respondents linked to Nepali and Indonesian smallholder farming systems. We identified three relevant discourses, one of them bipolar in nature. These three groups accounted for 39, 36, and 28% of the total explained variance of our study. The first one identified BP's potential early adopters. The second discourse embodied the (stereotypical) highly dependent smallholder. The last one characterized (contrasting) views around the BP as an enabler of potential service-oriented business models to achieve wellbeing. These results reflect the need for a shift of mindset toward new ways of understanding technological change in smallholder settings. On the one side, simplistic one-size-fits-all models cannot connect to the diversity of issues and opinions as we found. On the other side, it is virtually impossible to produce tailored solutions to satisfy each of those individual realities. We propose possible adoption pathways that may lead to the exploration of innovative and adaptable business models that serve the diversity of smallholder farming needs more effectively.

Exploring the Role of Agricultural Services in Production Efficiency in Chinese Agriculture: A Case of the Socialized Agricultural Service System

In recent decades, the Chinese government launched a socialized agricultural service system to help smallholders quickly modernize. This system helps farmers adopt modern-day farming operations to meet ever-increasing food and fiber requirements. The present study was conducted to analyze the impacts of this system on agricultural production efficiency. To this end, the Hubei province of China was selected, and the required data were retrieved from the Hubei Statistical Yearbook and Rural Statistical Yearbook for the years 2008 to 2019. The entropy method was applied to measure the extent of the adoption of socialized and individual agricultural services, while a data envelopment analysis (DEA) was used for measuring production efficiency. Grey correlation and regression analyses were carried out to analyze the association between production efficiency and agricultural service availability/uptake and the determinants of the former, respectively. The results illustrate that the agricultural socialized service level has increased. Specifically, the service levels of agricultural mechanization and financial insurance increased most rapidly in terms of individual services with the largest numbers of adopters. Science and technology and material services were found to exhibit the most significant relationships with the production efficiency of farmers. The results indicate a greater role of service provision in moderate-to-high-scale development, leading to land productivity and thereby improving agricultural production efficiency. The results also imply a higher demand for socialized agricultural services among farmers considering the value-added potential of such an integrated system with greater spillover options for achieving self-sufficiency in agriculture and ensuring food security.

Rice Subsector Development and Farmer Efficiency in Nepal: Implications for Further Transformation and Food Security

With economic development agricultural systems in the Global South transform from subsistence farming to higher productivity with market integration and increase in rural income and food security. In Nepal, agriculture continues to provide livelihoods for two-thirds of the predominantly rural population, largely at a subsistence-level. Rice is the staple food and covers the largest land area but yields are relatively low, with an annual import bill of USD 300 Million. The study uses data from 310 households from two distinct rice producing areas to assess farmers' rice production systems. It analyses farmers' rice production efficiency using a stochastic frontier production function to suggest how to advance the transformation of Nepal's rice sector. Our study finds that while agriculture related services such as access to inputs, information, markets, irrigation, and finance have generally improved, paddy farmers are only able to achieve 76% of potential output. Small/marginal farms were relatively less efficient than medium and large farms. Women farmers faced unequal access to technologies and have lower productivity than men. Unavailability of labor and capital, land fragmentation, and the lack of consistent access to seed and fertilizers contribute to reduced efficiency. Public and private sector investments are needed to enhance the timely and adequate access to quality seeds, fertilizers, processing facilities, and equipment services. Adopting a market systems approach through cooperative farming, targeted delivery of extension services, and linkages with rice millers can promote inclusive growth and improve rice food security in Nepal.

The Impact of Agricultural Socialized Services to Promote the Farmland Scale Management Behavior of Smallholder Farmers: Empirical Evidence from the Rice-Growing Region of Southern China

Farmland scale management (FSM) is an essential strategy to establish an appropriate management scale for agricultural production, enhance smallholder farmer production efficiency, and improve the utilization rate of farmland. The Chinese government promotes farmland transfer as a tool to establish modern and moderate-scale agriculture. However, farmers remain unable to afford agricultural services and inputs required for appropriate FSM after farmland is transferred-in. This paper aims to examine the impact of agricultural socialized services (ASSs) on the FSM behavior of smallholder farmers through farmland transfer. A theoretical framework for the farmer household production aspect of this relationship is developed. A weighted least squares (WLS) model is applied to empirically examine smallholder farmers’ decisions to expand the scale of farmland induced by the promotion of ASSs based on data collected from 741 households in 2020 in the rice-growing region of southern China. The findings reveal that ASSs have a positive and significant impact on small farmers’ FSM. Small farmers’ behavior regarding farmland transfer is affected positively by the promotion of ASSs. The increase of ASSs encourages small farmers to transfer-in more farmland. However, the impact of ASSs on various steps of agricultural practice varied according to the FSM of smallholder farmers. Our findings imply that the government should take the development of ASSs as one of the main methods for promoting the establishment of moderate and large-scale agriculture and rural revitalization. Strengthening policies and financial support for both private and public ASS providers through financial innovation subsidies and preferential tax policies will help smallholder farmers reduce input costs and increase the scale of production and profits. The findings of this paper will provide a scientific basis and reference for the development of moderate-scale agriculture and rural revitalization.

Gender differentiated small-scale farm mechanization in Nepal hills: An application of exogenous switching treatment regression

Farm mechanization among smallholder farming systems in developing countries is emerging as a viable option to off-set the effects of labor out-migration and shortages that undermine agricultural productivity. However, there is limited empirical literature on gender and farm mechanization. This study assesses the impacts of the gender of household heads on mini-tiller adoption in the hills of Nepal, using an exogenous switching treatment regression model. Our findings reveal that there is a significant gender gap in mini-tiller adoption between male-headed households (MH-HHs) and female-headed households (FH-HHs). Compared to MH-HHs, the mini-tiller adoption rate is significantly lower among the FH-HHs, and a large amount of unobserved heterogeneity is deriving this difference. Moreover, when MH-HHs and FH-HHs have similar observed attributes, the mini-tiller adoption rate among the food insecure FH-HHs is higher than in the food secure group. The gender-differentiated mini-tiller adoption rate can be minimized primarily by enhancing market access. Findings suggest that farm mechanization policies and programs targeted to the FH-HHs can reduce the gender-differentiated adoption gap in Nepal and similar hill production agro-ecologies in South Asia, which will enhance the farm yield and profitability.

Responsible Agricultural Mechanization Innovation for the Sustainable Development of Nepal’s Hillside Farming System

Agricultural mechanization in developing countries has taken at least two contested innovation pathways—the “incumbent trajectory” that promotes industrial agriculture, and an “alternative pathway” that supports small-scale mechanization for sustainable development of hillside farming systems. Although both pathways can potentially reduce human and animal drudgery, the body of literature that assesses the sustainability impacts of these mechanization pathways in the local ecological, socio-economic, cultural, and historical contexts of hillside farms is either nonexistent or under-theorized. This paper addresses this missing literature by examining the case of Nepal’s first Agricultural Mechanization Promotion Policy 2014 (AMPP) using a conceptual framework of what will be defined as “responsible innovation”. The historical context of this assessment involves the incumbent trajectory of mechanization in the country since the late 1960s that neglected smallholder farms located in the hills and mountains and biased mechanization policy for flat areas only. Findings from this study suggest that the AMPP addressed issues for smallholder production, including gender inequality, exclusion of smallholder farmers, and biophysical challenges associated with hillside farming systems, but it remains unclear whether and how the policy promotes small-scale agricultural mechanization for sustainable development of agriculture in the hills and mountains of Nepal.