As part of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID)/Washington and Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation supported Cereal Systems Initiative for South Asia (CSISA) and the USAID/Nepal Seeds and Fertilizer (NSAF) project, the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) and the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) organized a Regional Dialogue on September 5, 2019, in Kathmandu on “Innovations for Advancing Farmers’ Use of Balanced Nutrient Application in South Asia.” The aim of the event was to facilitate cross-country dialogues on efficient nutrient management in the region. The event saw participation from central and regional government representatives from policy and extension, private fertilizer companies and fertilizer federations, researchers from CGIAR centers, as well as representatives of the donor community. Participants came from India, Nepal, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka. Interactive discussions were centred around three main themes: (a) cross-country learning and evidence sharing on policies and subsidies to promote balanced nutrient application, (b) market, policy, and product innovations in the fertilizer industry, and (c) learnings and insights on the development of innovative methods in research and extension targeted to farmers. This policy brief summarizes seven key lessons learned from the discussions in the workshop.

This paper studies the high adoption of Pusa 44, a long-duration and old rice variety cultivated in Punjab, despite the availability of new short-duration varieties and the overall technological advancement of agriculture. We use farm-household data from a primary survey conducted in 2016-17. Pusa 44 yields on average 2.5 quintals higher per hectare than competing short-duration variety PR 121. It also consumes 16 percent additional water because of its longer duration. As energy for groundwater irrigation is provided tariff-free by the state, Pusa 44 farmers obtain higher net returns even though they pump additional groundwater. Consequently, they have little economic incentive to switch to new short-duration varieties. This varietal stickiness is a pressing policy issue considering the ongoing groundwater crisis in the state. We show that Punjab currently incurs an additional energy-subsidy cost of US$ 49 million per annum on irrigating Pusa 44. Future costs will continue to multiply unless farmers are incentivized to switch to short-duration rice varieties.

This study measures the willingness of male and female farmers to pay for climate-smart technology in rice. Rice is the most important crop in India in terms ofarea, production,and consumption. It is also the biggest source of greenhouse gas emissions among all crops. Direct-seeded rice (DSR)with drum seeder, a climate-smart technology, requires less labor and water and is more climate friendly than transplanted rice; yet,its adoption is slow in India. Theauthors of this studycarried out a discrete choice experiment with 666 farmers from the Palghar and Thane districts of Maharashtra to measure their willingness to pay for drum seeders—a key piece of equipment for adopting DSR. Both male and female farmers were surveyed to capture the heterogeneity in their valuation of the key attributes of drumseeders. Although both male and female farmers prefer cheaper drum seeders, the marginal valuation of different attributes of the drum seeder varies by the farmers’ gender. The authors also used the Women Empowerment in Agriculture Index (WEAI), developed by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), to collect self-reported data on the role and say of women in agriculture. The respective gender roles in the family and on the farm seem to explain some of this difference. Men have a greater say over how the family spends the cash. Accordingly, men tend to have a higher willingness to pay for attributes that increase income (increase in yield) or reduce cash costs (reduction in the seedrate). Women contribute a large share of the labor for transplanting rice, much of whichis unpaid work on family farms. Not surprisingly, therefore, women seem to value labor saving significantly more than their male counterparts. Further, theWEAI data show that although men in the family have more say, women do have an influence on decisions regarding crop production and the adoption of new technologies,to an extent. Therefore, to enhance the adoption of drum seeders, the product designers and extension workers should also target women

This 2013 Global Food Policy Report is the third in an annual series that provides an in-depth look at major food policy developments and events. Initiated in response to resurgent interest in food and nutrition security, the series offers a yearly overview of the food policy developments that have contributed to or hindered progress in achieving food and nutrition security. It reviews what happened in food policy and why, examines key challenges and opportunities, shares new evidence and knowledge, and highlights emerging issues.

Despite recognition of the potentially significant cumulative effects of input use on annual crop output—such as the effect of applying inorganic fertilizer in one year on crop output in the subsequent year—real-world evidence from smallholder farmers’ fields in lower-income countries remains scarce. We narrow this knowledge gap using unique district-level and farm-household-level annual panel datasets in India. We start with flexible translog production functions, which are well-suited for identifying cumulative effects in farmers’ actual production environments. We then apply shrinkage methods (LASSO and GMM-LASSO) to approximate the production function with reduced parameter dimensions, addressing various challenges such as multicollinearity among multiple inputs, including the same inputs from the current and previous years, and potential endogeneity in inputs. Our results indicate that, throughout the shrinkage process, potassium remains a key predictor of outputs, while other inputs (land, labor, capital, irrigation, and other fertilizer nutrients) drop out. More important, the cumulative quantity of potassium from both the previous and current years is a consistently more critical determinant of production than the quantity of potassium from the current year alone, demonstrating the potassium’s significant cumulative effects. These patterns hold at both the district and farm levels across diverse agroecologies and cropping systems. Furthermore, the dynamic panel data analyses suggest that farmers’ use of potassium in the current year is significantly negatively affected by its use in the previous year, potentially stabilizing outputs across years. Our results support earlier agronomic findings suggesting that the cumulative effects of potassium may be relevant across wider geographic regions than previously thought.

This 2013 Global Food Policy Report is the third in an annual series that provides an in-depth look at major food policy developments and events. Initiated in response to resurgent interest in food and nutrition security, the series offers a yearly overview of the food policy developments that have contributed to or hindered progress in achieving food and nutrition security. It reviews what happened in food policy and why, examines key challenges and opportunities, shares new evidence and knowledge, and highlights emerging issues.

The Million Farmers School (MFS) is an innovative extension program initiated by the Department of Agriculture in the state of Uttar Pradesh, India, in 2017. Twice in a year, the department deploys its entire extension machinery to organize nearly 15,000 training programs for about a million farmers across all districts of the state. Unlike traditional extension services, MFS integrates various facets of agricultural knowledge into a packaged product and delivers through village-level trainings where printed material on the topics of training are also distributed among participants. This study presents early findings of a process evaluation, involving assessments of program design, implementation strategies, and estimation of benefits from program participation. In addition to consultation with public officials and community organizations, a state-level representative survey was conducted on a sample of both participating and non-participating households. The early results based on matching and instrumental variable methods—suggest that knowledge outcomes are significantly better among participants vis-à-vis non-participants. The results are robust to different model specifications. The study also qualitatively assesses various aspects of the program’s design and implementation, highlighting the constraints and challenges it faces and offers implementation advice for greater efficacy in its future course.

This paper explores the relationship between agriculture, dietary diversity, and market access in Nepal, testing the complex causal chains involved, and the nuanced connections between production diversity and dietary diversity among smallholder farmers. While diversifying farm production could enhance dietary diversity, the case of Nepal indicates a varied and context specific relationship. Market access emerges as a crucial factor, often exerting a more significant impact on smallholder farm households than production diversity. Access to markets not only influences economic viability but also contributes directly to food and nutrition security, offering a practical solution to address dietary needs. Focusing on Nepal's diverse terrain, the study analyzes the interplay of remoteness, market access, irrigation availability, and complementary inputs in shaping farmers' decisions, providing valuable insights into sustainable agricultural strategies for improved dietary outcomes in low- and middle-income countries.

This 2013 Global Food Policy Report is the third in an annual series that provides an in-depth look at major food policy developments and events. Initiated in response to resurgent interest in food and nutrition security, the series offers a yearly overview of the food policy developments that have contributed to or hindered progress in achieving food and nutrition security. It reviews what happened in food policy and why, examines key challenges and opportunities, shares new evidence and knowledge, and highlights emerging issues.

The Green Revolution bypassed the state in its first wave in the 1960s and 1970s. Subsequently, during a short interval in the late 1980s and early 1990s, the agricultural growth rate reached almost 3 percent per year, one of the highest in the country, though over a smaller base. Even this modest growth was short-lived, and stagnation has set in again. This report explores why. Although the overall agricultural scenario of Bihar reflects slow growth and even stagnation, some regions in the state (like the Sone command area in south Bihar) and some crops (like maize) and allied activities (like the dairy and the livestock sector) show reasonable growth and dynamism. This report also explores such nascent sources of growth and discusses policies and investments that will put agriculture in Bihar on the takeoff trajectory.