The study first identified fully efficient farmers and then estimated technical efficiency of inefficient farmers, identifying their determinants by applying a Zero Inefficiency Stochastic Frontier Model (ZISFM) on a sample of 300 rice farmers from central-northern Thailand. Next, the study developed scenarios of potential production increase and resource conservation if technical inefficiency was eliminated. Results revealed that 13% of the sampled farmers were fully efficient, thereby justifying the use of our approach.
Women empowerment through increasing the access of resources in local situation is the highlighted issue in the present context. Women involve in different types of activities in agricultural sphere and shoulder the responsibility in playing the roles of different actors in agricultural innovation system. The dimension of agricultural innovation always prefers to go along with the concepts of the dynamics around different activities and roles that poor women communities engaging towards addressing their social and economic needs through agricultural production system.
This chapter analyses the access to and adequacy of formal sources in meeting the credit needs, particularly agricultural credit needs, of small farmers in India with the help of banking data, and data on the borrowing profiles of these households collected through the village surveys of the Project on Agrarian Relations in India (PARI).Three major institutions provide formal credit in the rural areas of India today: commercial banks, regional rural banks (RRBs), and credit cooperatives.
Accountability pressure to demonstrate how research for development projects will bridge the ‘output - outcome gap’ and achieve impacts ‘at scale’ has increased. Consequently, efforts to develop ‘Theory of Change’ (ToC) and impact pathways that steer programs and projects to outcomes have grown within Australia’s Official Development Assistance (ODA) strategy. In response, the cross agency Food Systems Innovation (FSI) initiative piloted the use of ToC thinking within Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR).
We look at the trade-off between smallholder cocoa intensification and the ecosystem in Indonesia and investigate the determinants of environmental efficiency in cocoa production. In our analysis, we apply a distance output function that includes cocoa production and the abundance of native rainforest plants as outputs. Our data set, based on a household and environment survey conducted in 2015, allows us to analyze 208 cocoa producers with both measured and self-reported data. We find that the intensification of cocoa farms results in higher ecosystem degradation.
The ‘ICT based Customer Care Solution for Poor Farmers’ is a case study that highlights Katalyst project’s work in developing low cost ICT solutions for farmers by collaborating with various public and private sector partners. The case study specifically focuses on a missed call based agriculture helpline service that was developed in collaboration with leading agriculture input companies. The service provides agriculture information solutions to smallholder farmers for free. Till date, the service has benefitted approximately 160,000 farmers.
The farming systems followed by farmers in Asia, Africa and Latin America have the potential to deal with the problems thrown up by climate change. This article examines the changing drought ecosystems of poor farmers and also points out that the present paradigm of agricultural development and what it means for small farmers needs to be critically evaluated. Droughts in 2016 affected a quarter of the Indian population (2,55,923 villages in 254 districts in 10 states). Debates over drought preparedness and development priorities have been widespread.
Innovations are fast changing the agricultural landscape driven by the increasing need to shift towards sustainable practices without sacrificing the productivity and profitability of farming. Innovations in technology, institutions, processes, and products have contributed to the growth of agriculture, globally and in developing countries including India and Africa, as observed in the cases of green revolution in cereals; and gene revolution in cotton.
For better efforts in development of the farming community, agricultural extension services have always focused on farmers’ resources, activities and capabilities. And this has proved to be an important standing point in the rice growing state Tripura of North East India for attaining self-sufficiency in food grain and developing the economic condition of the farmers. System of Rice Intensification (SRI) has been a boon to the rice farmers and also has posed as an example especially in similar other conditions around the world.