Essays on some issues of resource conserving technologies and practices in agriculture in India

Abstract

Resource conserving agricultural technologies and practices are being promoted to deal with the challenges of ensuring food security in the foreseeable future as well as protecting the livelihoods of millions of farmers. These challenges have arisen due to rapid deterioration and degradation of soil and water resources, either due to excessive use of chemicals and intensive agricultural practices in the Indo-Gangetic Plains (IGP) or due to abject neglect of the rain-fed agricultural areas of the country not covered under the first green revolution program. The resource conserving practices bring appreciable benefits in terms of protecting and enhancing the quality of scarce natural as well as savings in expensive chemical and other material resources in production of crops. Significant amount of money have been spent, mainly by the state in the promotion of such technologies and practices. newlineHow these resource conserving technologies for agricultural operations have been able to impact different agricultural outcomes while protecting the soil and water resources, how farmers themselves are using them and to what extent are they influenced by the experiences of their neighbours in adopting such practices are some of the issues that are being looked in this dissertation. It contributes to the growing literature on resource conserving technologies in agriculture by applying innovative quantitative and qualitative methods to find the answers to the issues, providing with more nuanced insights from the fields. The work drawing on the studies of three resource conserving technologies and practices watershed development, zero tillage (ZT) based drill and system of rice intensification (SRI) is based on surveys of more than 1000 farmers spanning different socio-economic backgrounds and agro-ecosystems facing different institutional conditions. newlineWatershed development has been effective in reducing the vulnerability of farm income to weather induced shocks and improving the conditions of rain fed agriculture in India that