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While the COVID-19 pandemic resulted about 24% decline in Indian GDP during April-June 2020 quarter, the nation's agricultural sector, somewhat surprisingly, seems to have done remarkably well during the same period. Using phone survey of a sample of previously interviewed households from Northern India, this paper examines whether the package of public transfer program announced during the lockdown, called Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Yojana (PM-GKY), has helped farmers deal with the shock. Overall, results show that 95 percent of the small holders received supports from at least one of the components of the PM-GKY scheme. Direct cash transfers have performed better than the in-kind transfer schemes. The econometric analysis, using a quasi-experimental method, suggests that the fungibility of funds received under the transfer package was significant in alleviating credit constraints and increasing agricultural investments in modern inputs. This is evident from the results that when only income support program (PM-KISAN) is considered, impact was limited to seed, not fertilizer and pesticides. By contrast, farmers who received benefits from all four programs (i.e., PM-KISAN, cash transfer for women, conditional cash transfers, and free food rations-KISAN) had spent significantly more on procurement of seeds, fertilizers, and pesticides. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi (PM-KISAN) scheme aims to provide income support to farmers to facilitate timely access to inputs by easing their liquidity needs. This study, based on 1,406 farmers of Uttar Pradesh and using a binary choice model, examines the scheme's targeting accuracy and the correlates of farmers' spending patterns. Triple difference with matching estimators are used to identify the differential impact of PM-KISAN on Krishi Vigyan Kendras (farm science centers, or KVKs) beneficiaries. Results show that PM-KISAN reached to one-third of all the farmers in the first three months of its implementation. Moreover, the study finds no selection bias based on social, economic and agricultural characteristics. The scheme has significantly helped those who are relatively more dependent on agriculture and have poor access to credit. Moreover, scheme has significantly stimulated the KVK 's impact on the adoption of modern cultivars. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Agricultural advisory services are the most important knowledge-delivery institutions for accelerating the adoption of advanced technologies, and for improving farmers’ learning abilities for their implementation. These technologies have implications for the larger goal of agricultural development and farmers’ welfare. This study explores the spillover effects of an innovative public-sector program in India that provides agricultural advisory services. At the Farm Science Centre (known locally as Krishi Vigyan Kendra [KVK]), scientists demonstrate modern technologies and develop capacity-building programs. This paper examines the extent of direct and spillover benefits of KVKs. It also evaluates the impact of KVKs on the adoption of improved technologies for primary beneficiaries (those who receive the benefits directly from KVKs), and for those farmers who receive information flow from them. The study is based on a primary survey of 1,496 wheat farmers in Uttar Pradesh, India. Spillover information flows are captured by: a) farmers who visit frontline demonstration (FLD) sites by their own curiosity and are categorized as secondary beneficiary farmers, and b) farmers who obtain information flows from primary and secondary beneficiaries being in their social network and are categorized as network beneficiary. Identification is achieved by exploiting non-universal coverage of KVKs, and through the availability of recall-based panels for pre- and post-intervention years on the adoption of improved technologies. The study applied matched difference-in-difference (MDID) approach to examine the effect of frontline demonstrations (FLDs) and training programs. It also examine pre-intervention trends to provide a check on the validity of our estimates. Findings revealed that 3% of primary beneficiaries of FLDs can generate information spillover to 31% of farmers. For capacity building, the results showed that 3% of primary beneficiaries can generate information spillover to 27% of farmers. The key channel for spillover information flow was the network beneficiary. On a further note, the study establishes evidence of a positive impact on the adoption of a modern wheat variety—namely HD-2967—by primary beneficiaries, as well as secondary and network beneficiaries. Consistent with the information transmission channels, the magnitude of impact estimates are highest for primary followed by secondary and network beneficiaries. From a policy perspective, the study suggests a scaling-up of KVK’s interventions. Establishing evidence on the role of social network channel to diffuse information flows for public-sector programs provides new insights for strengthening the outreach of such programs. Moreover, the evidence of intra-regional spillover effects have an implications for accounting these effects in conducting a cost-benefit analysis of these programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the importance of Southeast Asia (SEA) region in the world for economy and agriculture, and despite reported evidence of the modernization of various aspects of the agricultural sector, the information has not been compiled in ways that provides more representative insights of the regions, as well as chronological, dynamic perspectives across different aspects of the overall agricultural developments. This report partly fills this knowledge gap by summarizing the key characteristics in SEA region of the agricultural development, as well as changes in related outcomes, such as nutrition, natural resource endowments, and the labor movement into non-farm economies. In doing so, the report gathers secondary cross-country data on key aspects of the agricultural modernization and diversification. Overall, the SEA region has seen a relatively fast movement of labor out of the agricultural sector into non-farm sectors including trade, restaurants and hotel industries in the last few decades, leading to higher labor productivity growth than land productivity growth. Despite the important roles of trade, the agricultural production within the region and in each country continues to account for important sources of food and nutrition. The modern production technologies and inputs have spread constantly within the region, but with considerable time lags across countries. The growth of vegetable oils and aquaculture production have been considerable, and contrast with South Asia (SA) where similar patterns have been observed for vegetables and milk production. The public sector has played important roles in agricultural research and development (R&D) on genetic improvements, and infrastructure development, while keeping the nominal assistance to the sector through market interventions to a relatively modest level, which has been accompanied by the significant growth of the private-sector participation in the provisions of inputs, services and agricultural finance. The agricultural modernization in SEA region has, however, been also associated with some negative outcomes, including continued degradation of natural resources like water and forest areas in which SEA has been relatively rich historically, and gradual increases in certain types of malnutrition including overweight and diabetes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper evaluates the role of social networks in the adoption of mustard hybrids. The objectives of the paper are (i) to examine how the farmer's adoption decision relates to the adoption choices of their network members particularly in case of hybrids; (ii) to test whether the lower-caste (Scheduled Caste/Scheduled Tribe [SC/ST]) farmers relied more on social networks for information as compared to the higher-caste (non-SC/ST) farmers; and (iii) to explore whether social network effects are more pronounced when farmers interact within their caste as compared to outside the caste, the issue of homophily versus heterophily. The paper follows the model of social learning in Bandiera and Rasul (2006) extended by introducing the individual level covariates of network members. Further, we try to address endogeneity concerns by including village fixed effects and by analyzing the social network effects in a dynamic adoption framework. We establish evidence of endogenous effects in the adoption choices of hybrids i.e. more pronounced for the lower caste (schedule caste/tribe) vis-a-vis the higher caste. Further, network effects are stronger with homophily within the same caste. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The frontiers of technologies have been constantly expanded in many industries around the world, including the agricultural sector. Among many "frontier technologies" in agriculture, are protected agriculture, precision agriculture, and vertical farming, all of which depart substantially from many conventional agricultural production methods. It is not yet clear how these technologies can become adoptable in developing countries, including, for example, South Asian countries like India. This paper briefly reviews the issues associated with these three types of frontier technologies. We do so by systematically checking the academic articles listed in Google Scholar, which primarily focus on these technologies in developing countries in Asia. Where appropriate, a few widely-cited overview articles for each technology were also reviewed. The findings generally reveal where performances of these technologies can be raised potentially, based on the general trends in the literature. Where evidence is rich, some generalizable economic insights about these technologies are provided. For protected agriculture, recent research has focused significantly on various features of protective structures (tunnel heights, covering materials, shading structures, frames and sizes) indicating that there are potentials for adaptive research on such structures to raise the productivity of protected agriculture. The research on protected agriculture also focuses on types of climate parameters controlled, and energy structures, among others. For precision agriculture, recent research has focused on the spatial variability of production environments, development of efficient and suitable data management systems, efficiency of various types of image analyses and optical sensing, efficiency of sensors and related technologies, designs of precision agriculture equipment, optimal inputs and service uses, and their spatial allocations, potentials of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and nano-technologies. For vertical farming, research has often highlighted the variations in technologies based on out-door / indoor systems, ways to improve plants' access to light (natural or artificial), growing medium and nutrient / water supply, advanced features like electricity generation and integration of production space into an office / residential space, and water treatment. For India, issues listed above may be some of the key areas that the country can draw on from other more advanced countries in Asia, or can focus in its adaptive research to improve the relevance and applicability of these technologies to the country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study explores the diffusion process of innovators, early adopters, and late adopters of agricultural technologies. We define innovators, early adopters, and late adopters based on the time taken to adopt improved technology in a well-defined geographic area. The paper is based on a primary survey of 866 wheat farmers conducted in the state of Rajasthan, India. The primary objective of the study is to identify the structural characteristics and information channels for farmers classified as innovators and early adopters. The secondary objective is to present a more disaggregated analysis by assessing the factors that affect the adoption of recent seed varieties. The first objective is based on binary choice modeling, and the second objective relies on the empirical formulation drawn from Besley and Case (1993) that accounts for the dynamic processes related to adoption in the cross-sectional framework. We found that innovators and early adopters have access to similar economic resources, and largely have similar information channels, but the innovators' higher level of education and experience enables them to better decipher information and act on innovations. Further, the adoption of recent seed varieties for innovators increases with their interactions with the Krishi Vigyan Kendra (KVK) agricultural extension centers and increases with visits to agricultural fairs and exhibitions. Moreover, evidence also suggests that early adopters rely on the experiences of innovators to learn about new technologies. The study thus finds clear potential for innovators to serve as the focal point of information for farmers to learn about technology and can lead to quickened diffusion. From a policy perspective, the findings on the positive roles of KVKs are quite salient. By strengthening extension services and encouraging farmers' interaction with KVKs and agricultural fairs and exhibitions can improve the diffusion process. Nevertheless, the complementary roles of credit as well as insurance remain important for innovation, diffusion, and expeditious broad-based adoption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the most promising strategies to boost farmers' income in developing countries is the adoption of improved technologies, such as modern cultivars that may produce higher yields. This study aims to examine the adoption of modern cultivars in Rajasthan, one of India's northern states. Our analysis is based on a primary survey of 1,500 farmers covering four major crops: wheat, mustard, pearl millet, and gram. The study aims to identify the farmer-level constraints in adopting modern cultivars and decomposing into the elasticity of adoption probability and the use intensity. The study also attempts to assess the role of the key characteristics of cultivars in their adoption. The authors implemented McDonald and Moffitt's (1980) approach to decompose the overall elasticity into the elasticity of adoption probability and use intensity. To present cultivar-specific analysis, the authors modeled farmers' decisions to adopt top cultivars accounting for concerns regarding independence of irrelevant alternative assumption in a multinomial logistics framework. The study finds that the key policy drivers for adoption of modern cultivars are farmers' access to the Kisan Credit Card and the intensity of the extension services they receive. Further, the estimates of elasticity show that both variables are more important for adoption probability than use intensity. The cultivar-specific analysis shows that the main drivers for adoption of modern cultivars are drought (all crops), weather-related risk tolerance of cultivars (all crops), higher yield (wheat and pearl millet), better marketability and storage traits (pearl millet and gram), and pest and disease tolerance (wheat). The main driver for continuing old cultivars is taste attributes (wheat, pearl millet, and gram). Thus, the findings stress the importance of improving credit facilities for poor farmers in particular, and providing extension services to all farmers, beginning with the places where it needed the most. Moreover, breeding efforts should consider the identified traits when developing and up-grading cultivars to ensure the availability of suitable technology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]