Abstract
Fertilizer, though one of the most essential inputs for increasing agricultural production, is a leading cause of nitrous oxide emissions from agriculture, contributing significantly to global warming. Therefore, understanding factors affecting farmers’ use of fertilizers is crucial to develop strategies to improve its efficient use and to minimize its negative impacts. Using data from 2528 households across the Indo-Gangetic Plains in India, Nepal, and Bangladesh, this study examines the factors affecting farmers’ use of organic and inorganic fertilizers for the two most important cereal crops – rice and wheat. Together, these crops provide the bulk of calories consumed in the region. As nitrogen (N) fertilizer is the major source of global warming and other environmental effects, we also examine the factors contributing to its overuse. We applied multiple regression models to understand the factors influencing the use of inorganic fertilizer, Heckman models to understand the likelihood and intensity of organic fertilizer (manure) use, and a probit model to examine the over-use of N fertilizer. Our results indicate that various socio-economic and geographical factors influence the use of organic and inorganic fertilizers in rice and wheat. Across the study sites, N fertilizer over-use is the highest in Haryana (India) and the lowest in Nepal. Across all locations, farmers reported a decline in manure application, concomitant with a lack of awareness of the principles of appropriate fertilizer management that can limit environmental externalities. Educational programs highlighting measures to improving nutrient-use-efficiency and reducing the negative externalities of N fertilizer over-use are proposed to address these problems.
Highlights
Achieving food security, addressing climate change, and halting environmental and natural resource degradation are among the key challenges the agricultural sector faces in efforts to achieve sustainable development goals (SDGs1) and the Paris Agreement to limit the global temperature increase to below 2 °C (Wollenberg et al 2016)
This study explores the factors affecting the use of inorganic and organic fertilizers in rice and wheat production in South Asia (SA), using data from 2528 households spread across Bangladesh, India, and Nepal
Where Yi denotes the amount of urea (DAP) applied per hectare of rice or wheat produced per season, Xh is a matrix of household characteristics including age, education, and gender of the household head, Xs is a matrix of the ownership of and access to economic resources, Xk represents a matrix of knowledge enhancing activities such as participation in agricultural trainings and access to extension services, in addition to access to and market information and markets, and Xf refers to biophysical and farm characteristics including soil depth, soil fertility, access to irrigation, and distance from homestead to the rice or wheat field. α, β, γ, δ, and ψ are unknown parameters to be estimated, and ε is the stochastic error term
Summary
Achieving food security, addressing climate change, and halting environmental and natural resource degradation are among the key challenges the agricultural sector faces in efforts to achieve sustainable development goals (SDGs1) and the Paris Agreement to limit the global temperature increase to below 2 °C (Wollenberg et al 2016). Fertilizer use, nitrogen (N), is an important management practice to increase crop production and improve soil fertility. The use of soil fertility enhancing amendments to supply essential nutrients in crop production is of clear importance. Along with the nutrient supply from soil organic matter, crop residues, wet and dry deposition, and biological nitrogen fixation, synthetic (inorganic) fertilizer is a primary source of essential nutrients in crop production.
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