Abstract
AbstractWeather extremes which are accelerated by changing climate greatly decrease agricultural productivity, resulting in severe economic losses and losses of livelihood of the poorest marginal communities. The adoption of stress-tolerant rice varieties (STRVs) is recommended as a best technology fix for risk adaptation. Although STRVs provide better outcomes with no yield penalty, farmers' decisions to adopt new STRVs are influenced by a multitude of factors, most importantly information exposure. We used a sequential logit model to analyze the impact of information access and information quality on adoption decisions regarding STRVs in flood-risk areas. Over the years, we found that STRVs adoption has become scale neutral, but adopters have significantly higher access to information. The estimates showed that 48 per cent of the farmers having access to information decided to adopt STRVs. When information reaches 50 per cent of the rice farmers in flood-prone areas, the estimated additional annual income is US$235 million.
Highlights
Rice is the most important food crop in the world, feeding more than half of the world population (FAO, 2008; Ansari et al, 2015)
The SS1-adopting households are higher in households of other backward caste (OBC) and scheduled caste (SC) households vis-à-vis the general caste and scheduled tribe (ST) households
The study reveals that SS1 is a potential variety whose performance is significantly superior under submergence conditions
Summary
Rice is the most important food crop in the world, feeding more than half of the world population (FAO, 2008; Ansari et al, 2015). In the face of changing climate, drought and submergence are two major abiotic stresses which significantly constrain rice production in India. Rural poverty and food insecurity are persistent in those rainfed and flood-prone rice production areas. About 30 per cent of the 700 million people living in absolute poverty in Asia are from rainfed rice-growing areas of South Asia, and half of them live in India, Bangladesh and Nepal. They live in the rainfed areas that are prone to abiotic stresses (Ismail et al, 2013)
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