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Impact of soil and water conservation measures on farm productivity and income in the semi-arid tropics of Bundelkhand, central India

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 September 2022

Bishwa Bhaskar Choudhary ,
Inder Dev ,
Priyanka Singh Open the ORCID record for Priyanka Singh [Opens in a new window] ,
Ramesh Singh ,
Purushottam Sharma ,
Khem Chand ,
Kaushal K Garg ,
KH Anantha ,
Venkataradha Akuraju  and
Sreenath Dixit
...Show all authors
Bishwa Bhaskar Choudhary
Affiliation:
ICAR – Indian Grassland and Fodder Research Institute, Jhansi, 284 003, UP, India
Inder Dev
Affiliation:
ICAR – Central Agroforestry Research Institute, Jhansi, 284 003, UP, India
Priyanka Singh*
Affiliation:
ICAR – Central Agroforestry Research Institute, Jhansi, 284 003, UP, India
Ramesh Singh
Affiliation:
ICRISAT Development Centre, ICRISAT, Patancheru, 502324, Telangana, India
Purushottam Sharma
Affiliation:
ICAR – Indian Grassland and Fodder Research Institute, Jhansi, 284 003, UP, India
Khem Chand
Affiliation:
ICAR – Indian Grassland and Fodder Research Institute, Jhansi, 284 003, UP, India ICAR – National Institute of Agricultural Economics and Policy Research, New Delhi, India
Kaushal K Garg
Affiliation:
ICRISAT Development Centre, ICRISAT, Patancheru, 502324, Telangana, India
KH Anantha
Affiliation:
ICRISAT Development Centre, ICRISAT, Patancheru, 502324, Telangana, India
Venkataradha Akuraju
Affiliation:
ICRISAT Development Centre, ICRISAT, Patancheru, 502324, Telangana, India
Sreenath Dixit
Affiliation:
ICRISAT Development Centre, ICRISAT, Patancheru, 502324, Telangana, India
Sunil Kumar
Affiliation:
ICAR – Indian Grassland and Fodder Research Institute, Jhansi, 284 003, UP, India
Asha Ram
Affiliation:
ICAR – Central Agroforestry Research Institute, Jhansi, 284 003, UP, India
Naresh Kumar
Affiliation:
ICAR – Central Agroforestry Research Institute, Jhansi, 284 003, UP, India
*
Author for correspondence: Dr Priyanka Singh, Email: [email protected]
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Summary

Soil and water are crucial resources for agriculture, especially in arid and semi-arid rain-fed areas, yet farm-level economic impacts and the factors influencing the adoption of measures for their conservation are little studied. The present study used data from 400 farm households to assess factors influencing the adoption of soil and water conservation measures (SWCMs) and their impacts on farm productivity and income in a semi-arid region of central India. We employed a probit model to determine the factors influencing the on-farm adoption of SWCMs and a propensity score matching technique for assessing their impacts. The findings indicate that farmer age and education, off-farm income, farm size and land ownership and access to training are key drivers of the adoption of SWCMs. SWCMs accentuated the input costs by INR 1689–2847 per ha during the rabi cropping season (October–February), but also increased crop productivity and net revenue from farming. The impact in the rabi season was less sensitive to the unobserved confounders than in the kharif season (June–September). Therefore, SWCMs could represent an important strategy for unlocking the cultivation potential of large rain-fed areas and for sustaining the livelihoods of farm households in the ecologically fragile arid and semi-arid tropics.

Keywords

adoptionimpactpropensity score matchingsemi-arid regionsoil and water conservation
Type
Research Paper
Information
Environmental Conservation , Volume 49 , Issue 4 , December 2022 , pp. 263 - 271
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Copyright
© The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Foundation for Environmental Conservation

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