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The study aims to analyze the impact of market participation on small paddy farmers' income and consumption expenditure. The study also estimates various determinants affecting the market participation of smallholders. Further, the study computes the efficiency of different paddy marketing channels and identifies the determinants that impact the marketing channel selection of paddy growers in Eastern India.

The study used the propensity score matching (PSM) approach to measure the impact of market participation on farm income and per capita consumption. Further, the study employed Acharya and Aggarwal's composite index approach to estimate the marketing efficiency of various paddy marketing channels. Further, a multinomial logit model was used to determine the marketing channel selection constraints.

The outcomes indicate that market participation positively impacts farm income and consumption expenditure. Education, membership in farmers' organizations, price information and distance to the marketplace significantly affect farmers' market participation. The results show that the producer–retailer marketing channel is the most efficient compared to others. However, most paddy farmers sell paddy to farmgate collectors due to a lack of market information, vehicle ownership, storage system, and inability to take the risk of venturing out of the farmgate into markets.

The study uses primary data and captures only farmers' perspectives to measure the impact of market participation, marketing channel efficiency and determinants for market channel selection. The other stakeholder's perceptions can be included in future studies.

Rarely does any study identifies the efficiency of different marketing channels for paddy farmers in India and includes cognitive factors like risk perception and trust in buyers as constraints for market channel selection.

The purpose of this paper is to consider the climatic variables and evaluate the role of non-climatic factors that delicately influence agriculture. This study has come across various adaptation strategies such as modification in cultivation practices such as shifting planting dates, water-saving techniques and strategic nutrient management. Meanwhile, we are trying to forget the ground reality that a majority of the farmers are not aware of climate-resilient production technologies. However, farmers modify themselves in this climate change scenario for sustainable production. The practise of these adaptation strategies helps to reduce vulnerability to improve their “socio-economic status” and the “quality of life”.

The present study was attempted to document all the indigenous practices, which are practised by paddy-growers over time for confronting the climate crisis in the Hyderabad-Karnataka region of Karnataka state, India. A cross-sectional and questionnaire-based survey was conducted to collect primary data. The pre-tested interviewing questionnaire consisted of 7 sections with 51 questions. A total of 90 paddy-growing farmers of the region was selected as respondents for the survey. The descriptive statistics was used to analyse the collected data.

In respect of adopted strategies, the vast majority (96.67%) of the farmers had used crops as livestock fodder as they fall back in case of failure, followed by the majority (72.22%) of the selected appropriate varieties. Cent per cent of the farmers adopted the construction of waterways along the slope for safe disposal of rainwater. An overwhelming portion of the farmers adopted levelling of the land in between the bunds (96.67%) and construction of bunds to conserve moisture (95.56%). The majority (76.67%) of the farmers intensified agricultural activities on irrigated land. Nearly half of them (47.78%) paddy growers were practising zero tillage to save time and money.

The current study was carried out in a few districts of Karnataka. Hence, any policy framed based on the outcomes of this study may not conform to the policy specification needs in general to other parts of the country. The farmers did not maintain record books for updating various records. Therefore, the accuracy of data depends on the memory of the respondents. However, the researcher had made every possible effort to make sure that the data collected are the best of the knowledge of the respondents and bear minimal distortions.

The major constraints to applying agricultural adaptation strategies in the study area have been a general lack of knowledge, expertise and data on climate change issues; a lack of specific climate change institutions to take on climate change work and the need for a better institutional framework in which to implement adaptation. Actions to address these gaps include, namely, training programmes for local government officials, dedicated research activities and post-graduate courses and the initiation of specific institutional frameworks for climate change. Furthermore, improving and strengthening human capital, through education, outreach and extension services, improves decision-making capacity at every level and increases the collective capacity to adapt.

Hyderabad-Karnataka is already under pressure from climate stresses, which increases vulnerability to further climate change and reduces adaptive capacity. The adverse effects of climate change have a devastating effect particularly on paddy cultivation, which is the mainstay of most Hyderabad-Karnataka Region. This has affected food production with its resultant effect on widespread poverty. Farmers in the study area have developed traditional agricultural adaptation strategies to cope with climate variability and extreme events. Experience with these strategies needs to be shared among communities.

Though the many literatures were available on the adaptation strategies for climate change this research is one of the few studies to document the farmer led adaptation strategies. This study provides a better understanding of the importance of farmer led adaptation strategies which in turn helps to develop or modify the existing adaptation technologies to cope up with climate change. The authors have come across various adaptation strategies such as modification in cultivation practices such as shifting planting dates, water-saving techniques and strategic nutrient management. Meanwhile, we are trying to forget the ground reality that the majority of the farmers are not aware of climate-resilient production technologies. However, farmers modify themselves in this climate change scenario for sustainable production. The practise of these adaptation strategies helps to reduce vulnerability to improve their “socio-economic status” and the “quality of life”. Therefore, farmer-led adaptation strategies to confront with a change in climate require to be recorded.

New varieties of paddy are constantly being developed in India in order to sustain yield gains in the face of biotic and abiotic stresses. In this study, the authors attempt to identify the drivers for adoption of new varieties of paddy in India; the authors also estimate the impact on yield of the adoption of new paddy varieties.

Survey data consisted of the reported information from approximately 20,000 paddy farmers in India. The study employs Cragg's double-hurdle model to study the probability and intensity of adoption of new varieties; we use regression discontinuity design to estimate the change in yield due to adoption of new varieties.

The authors’ findings indicate that the adoption of new varieties of paddy in India varies significantly within and between regions; further, the adoption of new varieties is affected by a number of socioeconomic and demographic factors; the authors also find that the adoption of new varieties increases yield significantly.

These are observational data and not based on the experiments. The authors relied on farmers' memory to recall the information.

The authors suggest the formulation of strategic policies that can cater to the needs of regions and states that are lagging behind in the adoption of new paddy varieties.

Due to rapid urbanization, rice consumption in Togo has also rapidly increased. Most consumers prefer imported rice over domestically produced rice due to the higher quality of the imported rice. The purpose of this paper is to show that it is possible to upgrade the quality of Togo’s domestically produced rice by providing technical and management support in the form of contract farming.

Cross-sectional data were collected using a multi-stage sampling technique. An endogenous switching regression model was used for data analysis.

The results show that by participating in contract farming, paddy rice quality was upgraded from Grade IV (poor quality) to Grade I (premium quality). The factors influencing this upgrade in the quality of paddy rice grown through contract farming are: the number of extension visits to the farmer, the mode of threshing used by the farmer, and the agro-ecological zone of the farmer.

The data for this study are limited to one country, Togo and this may have implications for generalizing the results for other countries.

This study is original research that contributes to an improved understanding of the impacts of contract farming on the quality of agricultural products produced in developing and emerging economies.

Recent studies suggest extensive use of environmental resources in agrofarming degrades ecosystem significantly. In this backdrop, this study aims at assessing ecoefficiency of paddy farming. Because ecoefficiency links up between economic performances and environmental resources supporting the provision of goods and services for the society, this study further investigates the effectiveness of attending Farmers' Field School (FFS), an agroenvironmental program, in conserving environmental resources through improving farm-level ecoefficiency.

In a dataset of 200 randomly selected paddy farmers from three districts of the southwestern Bangladesh, data envelopment analysis (DEA) is applied to compute both radial and pressure-specific (nutrient balance, energy balance, irrigation and pesticide lethal risk) ecoefficiency scores. Furthermore, propensity score matching (PSM) technique is applied to examine the impact of FFS program on farm-level ecoefficiency.

The DEA results suggest that paddy farmers are highly eco-inefficient. The computed radial eco-efficiency score is 0.40 implying farmers could reduce around 60% of environmental pressure equiproportionally even by maintaining the same level of value addition. In addition, the PSM results suggest farmers' participation in FFS program led to around 22.5% higher radial ecoefficiency and 7–25% higher environmental pressure-specific eco-efficiencies. Furthermore, simulation exercises reveal that FFS participation in interaction with farm size would lead to around 32–40% reduction of all environmental pressures.

Promoting FFS programs among paddy farmers could be an effective policy option to improve eco-efficiency through environment-friendly farming paradigm.

This study is probably the maiden effort that has examined the impact of attending the FFS program on ecoefficiency improvement in Bangladesh. This study contributes to both the concern literature by adding useful information and the policymakers by providing new insights about the reduction of environmental resource usage with maintaining the same value addition from agrofarming.

With the increased stress on sustainability and food security, in addition, the need towards halting environmental deprivation has focused attention on green fertilizer technology (GFT), which is the means of improving the situation causing the rising environmental concern. It also gives efficient use of farm resources which can help to protect crops. Moreover, the adoption of GFT is one aspect to answer the problem in regards to the sustainable environment. In the year 1980, an initiative took place to simplify the adoption decision in the developing countries. Regardless of the low adoption rate elsewhere, comparable exertions in the current year have originated in developing countries. Accepting those primary factors that influence the adoption of GFT is very important. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

This study re-examines these factors and draws policy implications from that review for future actions. This research study re-examines them, based on other studies examining the inadequate adoption of GFT in developing countries, by generalising their conclusions to clarify why farmers have or have not made the decision to adopt GFT. The ability to address that awareness enables the theory of planned behaviour (TPB) model to predict the farmer’s intention of acceptability of the GFT. By following a socio-psychological approach, by using TPB, the researchers have found out the paddy farmers’ adoption decision towards GFT. The researchers later discuss the implications for promoting the adoption of GFT, which delivers suggestions for the upcoming research study.

The idea of this research study is to seek farmers’ understanding about environmental attitudes in connection with conservation behaviour. The overall aim of this paper is to conceptualise the framework created by amending the environmental concern amongst paddy farmers towards GFT.

This research study will allow more academic consideration and may direct future research on the empirical findings on the environmental concern through the proposed conceptual framework amongst paddy farmers in Malaysia.

This study analyzes the impact of COVID-19 on agricultural production in South India by evaluating the influence of market channels and socioeconomic conditions on the production decisions of farmers during two key cropping seasons. We base our analysis on primary data from 200 marginal, small and medium farmers, primarily focusing on the key seasonal crops, namely paddy and black gram.

We studied the downstream supply chains of paddy and black gram crops in the district of Villupuram, situated in the South Indian state of Tamil Nadu. Using a Bi-Probit model, we analyzed the production decisions of marginal, small and medium farmers engaged in paddy and black gram cultivation. Various factors are considered, including farmers’ socioeconomic characteristics, gender, market channels accessed and the coping strategies employed.

After the easing of lockdown measures in June 2020, our research revealed substantial disruptions in agricultural production during the critical Kharif and Rabi seasons. Most farmers refrained from returning to their fields during the Kharif season; those who did produced millet as the main crop. Factors such as choice of market channels in previous seasons, economic status, access to all-weather roads, labor availability, gender and coping strategies played an important role in the return to production in the subsequent Kharif and Rabi seasons.

Our data revealed several interesting threads related to price volatility, irrigation and access to markets and their impact on food security. The role of intermediaries and market channels in providing liquidity emerges as an important aspect of farmers' choice of markets. The pandemic impacted all these factors, but a detailed analysis was beyond the scope of this study.

We also find that resilience to economic shocks varies not only by economic status but also by gender and social groups. Farmers with female members are more likely to be resilient, and marginal and small farmers primarily belong to social groups that are economically less developed.

This study contributes to the literature on factors influencing farmer choice and decision-making and provides nuances to discussions by analyzing crop-specific supply chains, highlighting the critical role of socioeconomic factors. It also highlights the role of demographics and infrastructural factors like access to all-weather roads and access to markets that influence farmers’ production decisions.

Laser land leveling (LLL) is a climate-smart technology that improves water use efficiency and reduces risk in crop cultivation due to weather variability. Hence, this technology is useful for cultivating water-intensive crops in a sustainable way. Given this background, the state government of Karnataka initiated to promote LLL in drought-prone districts and selected Raichur district for implementation. Moreover, farmers in this district had observed drought situation during monsoon paddy growing season in 2018. Therefore, this study attempts to investigate the importance of LLL technology for paddy cultivation under drought conditions.

A primary survey with 604 farmer households had been conducted in Raichur in 2018. Among them, 50% are adopters of LLL who have been selected purposively and rest 50% are non-adopters who have grown paddy in the adjacent or nearest plot of the laser-leveled plot. The adoption and causal impact of LLL has been estimated using propensity score matching, coarsened exact matching and endogenous switching regression methods.

The result reveals a positive and significant impact of LLL on paddy yield and net returns to the farmers. The results indicate an increment of 12 and 16% in rice yield and net income, respectively, for LLL adopters in comparison to the non-adopters of LLL.

The major limitation of the study is that it does not adopt the method of experimental study due to certain limitations; hence, the authors employed a quasi-experimental method to look at the possible impact of adoption of LL.

There have been various agronomic studies focusing on the ex-ante assessment of the LLL. This study is an ex-post assessment of the technology on the crop yield and farmers' income in a dry semi-arid region of India, which, according to the authors, is the first in this approach.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the factors influencing Indonesian farmers’ use of the warehouse receipt system (WRS) and their choice of private and public warehouses.

Primary data were collected through questionnaires administered to 500 farmers in two districts, Subang and Cianjur, in West Java Province in Indonesia. Binary logit regression was employed to examine the factors influencing farmers’ use of the WRS. Binary and bivariate probit regressions were employed to determine the factors influencing farmers’ choice of private and public warehouses.

The empirical results of the binary logit regression revealed that age, land ownership, selling price, the use of the warehouse receipt as collateral security and the availability of transportation facility positively influenced farmers’ use of the WRS, whereas education, income, farm profit and participation in farmers’ group negatively influenced farmers’ use of the WRS. The results of the binary probit regressions revealed that profit, availability of insurance and processing facility positively influenced the farmers’ decision to use the private WRS, whereas education, production, selling price and distance from the farm to the warehouse negatively influenced farmers’ decision to use the private WRS. Age, education, selling price and distance from the farm to the warehouse positively influenced the farmers’ decision to use the public WRS, whereas production and availability of processing facility negatively influenced the decision of farmers to use the public WRS.

This study highlights the importance of education and government assistance regarding the provision of facilities and price indemnified insurance for successful implementation of the WRS.

This study provides an empirical contribution to the existing literature on the development of WRS in Indonesia. In terms of methods of analysis, previous studies used purely qualitative and descriptive methods, whereas this study employed econometric techniques (i.e. binary logit, binary probit and bivariate probit regressions) to examine the WRS in Indonesia. In addition, whereas previous studies explored the WRS in general, this study investigated the farmers’ use of the public and private warehouses in addition to exploring the WRS in general. Finally, the finding that the average annual profit of non-users was significantly higher than that of the users of the WRS is striking, and this could be attributed to the current challenges of the implementation of the WRS, including high transportation and warehouse rental costs.

Paddy farmers form the backbone of food security. However, poverty plagues them despite having linked them to the rice value chain. To overcome this, the concept of involving smallholders in post-farm value chain stages is promoted. The purpose of this paper is to explore the potential of upgrading smallholder involvement in rice value chains through the adoption of a sustainability standard.

The authors built a system dynamic model to capture both conventional and certified sub-value chains. The latter deviates from the conventional one and capitalizes on compliance to a sustainability standard.

When compared to conventional farm gate sales methods, the simulations revealed obvious profitability of direct marketing with respect to certified sustainable rice. Although coupled with productivity growth, the simulations indicated the shift to standard adoption would likely to be both limited and slow.

The findings suggest that the profitability of a certified rice value chain will remain fettered. In order to enhance both farmer livelihood and food security, given the limited prospect of moving smallholders up that chain, the authors conclude that national policy should be rationalized and concentrated on the possibility of diversifying the end-use of rice through research, development and subsequent commercialization.