Hostname: page-component-745bb68f8f-v2bm5 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-01-12T10:05:26.428Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

VILLAGE SURVEYS FOR TECHNOLOGY UPTAKE MONITORING: CASE OF TILLAGE DYNAMICS IN THE TRANS-GANGETIC PLAINS

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 April 2010

OLAF ERENSTEIN
OLAF ERENSTEIN*
Affiliation:
International Maize and Wheat Improvement Centre (CIMMYT), CG Block, NASC Complex, Todapur Road, Pusa, New Delhi-110012, India
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Summary

Agricultural research and development (R&D) would benefit from reliable yet cheap technology uptake indicators to guide decision making. The paper explores the use of village surveys to monitor technology use and illustrates this through two empirical case studies into tillage dynamics in the Trans-Gangetic Plains in northwest India. The first case study is a revisit of 50 communities surveyed earlier in Haryana State. The second case study is a new and wider representative sample of 120 villages across Haryana and Punjab States. The case studies illustrate that after an initial rapid spread of tractor-drawn zero tillage drills for wheat seeding in these intensive systems, the zero + reduced tillage area seems to have stabilized there at between a fifth and a quarter of the wheat area. Conventional tillage for wheat continues to decline, with an increased use of rotavators making up the difference – but its intensive shallow tillage goes against the conservation agriculture tenets. The paper illustrates the potential of village surveys to provide timely and cost-effective feedback to agricultural R&D.

Type
Research Article
Information
Experimental Agriculture , Volume 46 , Issue 3 , July 2010 , pp. 277 - 292
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2010

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

CIMMYT (1993). The Adoption of Agricultural Technology: A Guide for Survey Design. Economics Program. Mexico, D.F.: CIMMYT.Google Scholar
Dasgupta, B. (1978). Village Studies in the Third World. Delhi: Hindustan Publishing Corporation.Google Scholar
Erenstein, O. (2009a). Specification effects in zero tillage survey data in South Asia's rice-wheat systems. Field Crops Research 111:166–172.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Erenstein, O. (2009b). Adoption and impact of conservation agriculture based resource conserving technologies in South Asia. In Proceedings 4th World Congress on Conservation Agriculture, February 4–7, 2009, New Delhi, India, 439–444.Google Scholar
Erenstein, O. (2010). Triangulating technology diffusion indicators: Case of zero tillage wheat in South Asia's irrigated plains. Experimental Agriculture: doi:10/1017/S0014479710000037.Google Scholar
Erenstein, O. and Laxmi, V. (2008). Zero tillage impacts in India's rice-wheat Systems: A review. Soil & Tillage Research 100:1–14.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Erenstein, O. and Thorpe, W. (2009). Crop-livestock interactions along agro-ecological gradients: A meso-level analysis in the Indo-Gangetic Plains, India. Environment, Development and Sustainability doi: 10.1007/s10668-009-9218-z.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Erenstein, O. and Farooq, U. (2009). A survey of factors associated with the adoption of zero tillage wheat in the irrigated plains of South Asia. Experimental Agriculture 45:133–147.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Erenstein, O., Malik, R. K. and Singh, S. (2007a). Adoption and impacts of zero tillage in the irrigated rice-wheat systems of Haryana, India. Research Report. New Delhi, India: CIMMYT & RWC.Google Scholar
Erenstein, O., Thorpe, W., Singh, J. and Varma, A. (2007b). Crop-livestock Interactions and Livelihoods in the Indo-Gangetic Plains, India: A Regional Synthesis. Mexico, DF: CIMMYT.Google Scholar
Erenstein, O., Farooq, U., Malik, R. K. and Sharif, M. (2007c). Adoption and impacts of zero tillage as a resource conserving technology in the irrigated plains of South Asia. Comprehensive Assessment of Water Management in Agriculture – Research Report 19. Colombo, Sri Lanka: IWMI.Google Scholar
Erenstein, O., Farooq, U., Malik, R. K. and Sharif, M. (2008). On-farm impacts of zero tillage wheat in South Asia's rice-wheat systems. Field Crops Research 105:240–252.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hobbs, P. R., Sayre, K. and Gupta, R. (2008). The role of conservation agriculture in sustainable agriculture. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 363:543–555.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lipton, M. and Moore, M. (1972). The methodology of village studies in less developed countries. Discussion Paper 10. Brighton: IDS, University of Sussex.Google Scholar
Rogers, E. M. (2003). Diffusion of Innovations. New York: The Free Press.Google Scholar
Scoones, I. (2009). Livelihoods perspectives and rural development. Journal of Peasant Studies 36:171–196.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Singh, R., Erenstein, O., Gathala, M. K., Alam, M. M., Regmi, A. P., Singh, U. P., Rehman, H. M. and Tripathi, B. P. (2009). Socio-economics of integrated crop and resource management in the rice-wheat systems of South Asia: Site contrasts, adoption and impacts using village survey findings. In Integrated Crop and Resource Management Technologies for Sustainable Rice-Wheat Systems of South Asia, 355–394 (EdsLadha, J. K., Yadvinder-Singh, , Erenstein, O. and B. Hardy). New Delhi: IRRI.Google Scholar
Teufel, N., Erenstein, O. and Samaddar, A. (2007). Perceptions and potential of resource conserving technologies in the crop-livestock systems of the Indo-Gangetic plains. Poster presented at Tropentag, October 9–11, 2007, Witzenhausen, Germany.Google Scholar