Intrahousehold preference heterogeneity and demand for labor-saving agricultural technology: The case of mechanical rice transplanting in India

Intrahousehold preference heterogeneity and demand for labor-saving agricultural technology: The case of mechanical rice transplanting in India PDF Author: Kajal Gulati
Publisher: Intl Food Policy Res Inst
ISBN:
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 72

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Book Description
Evaluations of agricultural technologies rarely consider how adoption may alter the labor allocation of different household members. We examine intrahousehold decision-making dynamics that shape smallholder agricultural households' decision to hire in mechanical rice transplanting (MRT), a technology that reduces demand for labor. To study the adoption decision, we employ an experimental approach to estimating the willingness-to-pay for MRT services, both at the level of individual men and women within the same households, as well as at the overall household level. We find that women value MRT more than men, but this difference in valuation is not driven by differences in their individual characteristics, but primarily by differences in preferences. Although women value MRT more than men, they have less influence over the ultimate technology adoption decision. In households with women working as outside hired laborers, the intrahousehold differences in MRT valuation disappear, suggesting that women value MRT as a means of reallocating on-farm labor to other unpaid family work. Labor-saving mechanization, such as MRT, may have important implications for rural labor markets and on the (gendered) division of labor within agricultural households.

Intrahousehold preference heterogeneity and demand for labor-saving agricultural technology: The case of mechanical rice transplanting in India

Intrahousehold preference heterogeneity and demand for labor-saving agricultural technology: The case of mechanical rice transplanting in India PDF Author: Kajal Gulati
Publisher: Intl Food Policy Res Inst
ISBN:
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 72

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Book Description
Evaluations of agricultural technologies rarely consider how adoption may alter the labor allocation of different household members. We examine intrahousehold decision-making dynamics that shape smallholder agricultural households' decision to hire in mechanical rice transplanting (MRT), a technology that reduces demand for labor. To study the adoption decision, we employ an experimental approach to estimating the willingness-to-pay for MRT services, both at the level of individual men and women within the same households, as well as at the overall household level. We find that women value MRT more than men, but this difference in valuation is not driven by differences in their individual characteristics, but primarily by differences in preferences. Although women value MRT more than men, they have less influence over the ultimate technology adoption decision. In households with women working as outside hired laborers, the intrahousehold differences in MRT valuation disappear, suggesting that women value MRT as a means of reallocating on-farm labor to other unpaid family work. Labor-saving mechanization, such as MRT, may have important implications for rural labor markets and on the (gendered) division of labor within agricultural households.

Intrahousehold Preference Heterogeneity and Demand for Labor-Saving Agricultural Technology

Intrahousehold Preference Heterogeneity and Demand for Labor-Saving Agricultural Technology PDF Author: Kajal Gulati
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 72

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Book Description
Evaluations of agricultural technologies rarely consider how adoption may alter the labor allocation of different household members. We examine intrahousehold decision-making dynamics that shape smallholder agricultural households' decision to hire in mechanical rice transplanting (MRT), a technology that reduces demand for labor. To study the adoption decision, we employ an experimental approach to estimating the willingness-to-pay for MRT services, both at the level of individual men and women within the same households, as well as at the overall household level. We find that women value MRT more than men, but this difference in valuation is not driven by differences in their individual characteristics, but primarily by differences in preferences. Although women value MRT more than men, they have less influence over the ultimate technology adoption decision. In households with women working as outside hired laborers, the intrahousehold differences in MRT valuation disappear, suggesting that women value MRT as a means of reallocating on-farm labor to other unpaid family work. Labor-saving mechanization, such as MRT, may have important implications for rural labor markets and on the (gendered) division of labor within agricultural households.

Agricultural mechanization and gendered labor activities across sectors: Micro-evidence from multi-country farm household data

Agricultural mechanization and gendered labor activities across sectors: Micro-evidence from multi-country farm household data PDF Author: Takeshima, Hiroyuki
Publisher: Intl Food Policy Res Inst
ISBN:
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 37

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Book Description
Gender differences in the engagement of work activities across sectors are important elements of gender inequality in rural livelihoods and welfare in developing countries. The role of production technologies, including agricultural mechanization, in addressing gender inequality, is increasingly explored. Knowledge gaps remain, however, including, how agricultural mechanization differentially affect labor engagements across sectors. This study aims to partly fill these knowledge gaps through micro-evidence from 8 countries (Ethiopia, Ghana, Nigeria, Tanzania, India, Nepal, Tajikistan and Vietnam), using several nationally representative panel data and supplementary data, and applying Correlated-Random-Effects Double-Hurdle models with Instrumental-Variables. We find that the use of tractors and/or combine harvesters by the household induces greater shift from farm activities to non-farm activities by female members than by male members. While statistical significance varies, these patterns generally hold consistently across all 8 countries studied. These patterns also seem to hold across different farm sizes. While these are short-term relations, agricultural mechanization proxied by tractor and/or combine harvesters is one of the important contributors to gendered rural livelihood. Future studies should more closely investigate underlying mechanisms and implications of these patterns.

The Economics of Household Decisions, Gender, and Agricultural Mechanization in India

The Economics of Household Decisions, Gender, and Agricultural Mechanization in India PDF Author: Kajal Gulati
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780355461138
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description
Diffusion of agricultural innovations forms the backbone of improving agricultural productivity and profitability in many developing countries. In the last decade, the Indian economy has experienced rapid economic growth, an increase in the share of the urban sector in income and employment, and a rise in agricultural productivity. These rural wage changes and the significant reshuffling of rural labor markets of both women and men have renewed research and policy interest in the dynamics of agricultural mechanization and its producer and consumer welfare implications. This dissertation examines the role of labor displacement, gendered social networks, and the emergence of private-sector service providers in agricultural technology adoption in India. In Chapter 2, I study the influence of women's labor displacement on the mechanization of rice transplanting in India. Mechanical rice transplanting (MRT) is a cultivation practice that significantly reduces labor in transplanting -- an agricultural activity primarily reserved for women in India. I examine the influence of intrahousehold heterogeneity in demand for MRT on the household's technology adoption decision. First, I elicit individual willingness to pay for MRT from women and men belonging to the same households. Second, I use a village-level experimental auction to measure the household's willingness to pay for the technology. Women are willing to pay more than men for MRT services, and their MRT demand also tends to save their unpaid labor more as compared to men's demand. The intrahousehold differences in MRT valuation disappear when women engage in hired wage work, suggesting that women value MRT to potentially reallocate farm labor to other unpaid family work. These results have implications for rural labor market welfare because agricultural and labor productivity gains due to MRT adoption may, in turn, push women into more traditional gendered labor divisions, which may influence women's wage rates and bargaining potential in rural employment sectors. Chapter 3 examines the role of women's and men's social networks in the adoption of a water-saving, land preparation technology called laser land leveling (LLL). As a first step, the research intervention created a random set of LLL adopters in each village. The program also elicited the agricultural information networks of women and men belonging to the same households. In the following year, the research team measured LLL demand using an experimental auction. This Chapter analyzes the differential influence of women's and men's networks on the household's LLL demand after a year of exposure. Identification of network effects stems from the exogenous variation in the number of adopters in women's and men's networks. We find very little overlap in the networks of women and men. Belonging to the same family and being a progressive farmer contribute to women's and men's network formation. Moreover, women use their networks to access information about the technology and influence their household's LLL demand, even though the influence of their networks is less than the men's networks. Chapter 4 studies the early phase of LLL diffusion in the eastern part of Uttar Pradesh, where the villages had relatively little exposure to the technology prior to 2010. The Chapter uses a program intervention that allowed random villages in the study area to obtain LLL in 2011 and 2012. Using this random LLL adoption, I examine the role of information in the early diffusion of LLL. Identification of factors contributing to LLL adoption in villages is problematic due to simultaneity between LLL adoption in villages and the emergence of service providers and due to omitted variable bias from unobserved variables influencing LLL demand. The Chapter uses a procedure analogous to the Olley and Pakes (1996) method to identify the parameters related to the influence of service providers in a village's LLL adoption. The research findings show the program intervention is not critically associated with the diffusion of LLL in the study region. Moreover, private-sector service providers are a critical source of LLL diffusion. Ultimately, the way agricultural technologies diffuse across agricultural zones and the factors accelerating mechanization are fundamental to future agricultural productivity gains for at least the next decade in India.

Gender and agricultural mechanization: A mixed-methods exploration of the impacts of multi-crop reaper-harvester service provision in Bangladesh

Gender and agricultural mechanization: A mixed-methods exploration of the impacts of multi-crop reaper-harvester service provision in Bangladesh PDF Author: Theis, Sophie
Publisher: Intl Food Policy Res Inst
ISBN:
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 48

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Book Description
Farmer hiring of agricultural machinery services is common in South Asia. Informal fee-for-service arrangements have positioned farmers so they can access use of machinery to conduct critical, timesensitive agricultural tasks like land preparation, seeding, irrigation, harvesting and post- harvesting operations. However, both the provision and rental of machinery services are currently dominated by men, and by most measures, it appears that women have comparatively limited roles in this market and may receive fewer benefits. Despite the prevailing perception in rural Bangladesh that women do not participate in agricultural entrepreneurship, women do not necessarily lack a desire to be involved. Using a mixed methods approach involving literature review, secondary data collection, focus groups and key informant interviews, and a telephone survey, we studied the gendered differences in women’s and men’s involvement in emerging markets for rice and wheat reaper-harvester machinery services in Bangladesh. We find that women benefit from managing and sometimes owning machinery services, as well as from the direct and indirect consequences of hiring such services to harvest their crops. However, a number of technical, economic, and cultural barriers appear to constrain female participation in both reaper service business ownership and in hiring services as a client. In addition, women provided suggestions for how to overcome barriers constraining their entry into rural machinery services as an entrepreneur. Men also reflected on the conditions they would consider supporting women to become business owners. Our findings have implications for addressing social norms in support of women’s rural entrepreneurship and technology adoption in South Asia’s smallholder dominated rural economies.

Village and Household Economies in India's Semi-arid Tropics

Village and Household Economies in India's Semi-arid Tropics PDF Author: T. S. Walker
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 424

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Book Description


Family Farming

Family Farming PDF Author: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)
Publisher:
ISBN: 9789332703421
Category : Family farms
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Contributed articles presented in Asia Pacific Regional Consultation on the Role of Family Farming in the 21st Century: Achieving the Zero Hunger Challenge by 2015, held at Chennai on August 07-10, 2014.

Crying Out for Change

Crying Out for Change PDF Author: Deepa Narayan-Parker
Publisher: World Bank Publications
ISBN: 9780195216028
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 342

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Book Description
A multi-country research initiative to understand poverty from the eyes of the poor, the Voices of the Poor project was undertaken to inform the World Bank's activities and the upcoming World Development Report 2000/01. The research findings are being published in three books: "Can Anyone Hear Us?" gathers the voices of over 40,000 poor women and men in 50 countries from the World Bank's participatory poverty assessments (Deepa Narayan, Raj Patel, Kai Schafft, Anne Rademacher, and Sarah Koch-Schulte, authors). "Crying Out for Change" pulls together new field work conducted in 1999 in 23 countries (Deepa Narayan, Robert Chambers, Meera Shah, and Patti Petesch, authors). "From Many Lands" offers regional patterns and country case-studies (Deepa Narayan and Patti Petesch, editors). Voices of the Poor marks the first time such an exercise has been undertaken in so many developing countries and transition economies around the world. It provides a unique and detailed picture of the life of the poor and explains the constraints poor people face to escape from poverty in a way that more traditional survey techniques do not capture well. Each of the three volumes demonstrates the importance of voice and power in poor people's definition of poverty. Voices of the Poor concludes that we need to expand our conventional views of poverty which focus on income expenditure, education, and health to include measures of voice and empowerment.

Transforming Gender and Food Security in the Global South

Transforming Gender and Food Security in the Global South PDF Author: Jemimah Njuki
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317190017
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 295

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Book Description
Drawing on studies from Africa, Asia and South America, this book provides empirical evidence and conceptual explorations of the gendered dimensions of food security. It investigates how food security and gender inequity are conceptualized within interventions, assesses the impacts and outcomes of gender-responsive programs on food security and gender equity and addresses diverse approaches to gender research and practice that range from descriptive and analytical to strategic and transformative. The chapters draw on diverse theoretical perspectives, including transformative learning, feminist theory, deliberative democracy and technology adoption. As a result, they add important conceptual and empirical material to a growing literature on the challenges of gender equity in agricultural production. A unique feature of this book is the integration of both analytic and transformative approaches to understanding gender and food security. The analytic material shows how food security interventions enable women and men to meet the long-term nutritional needs of their households, and to enhance their economic position. The transformative chapters also document efforts to build durable and equitable relationships between men and women, addressing underlying social, cultural and economic causes of gender inequality. Taken together, these combined approaches enable women and men to reflect on gendered divisions of labor and resources related to food, and to reshape these divisions in ways which benefit families and communities. Co-published with the International Development Research Centre.

Prophets Facing Backward

Prophets Facing Backward PDF Author: Meera Nanda
Publisher: Rutgers University Press
ISBN: 9780813533582
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 334

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Book Description
The leading voices in science studies have argued that modern science reflects dominant social interests of Western society. Following this logic, postmodern scholars have urged postcolonial societies to develop their own "alternative sciences" as a step towards "mental decolonization". These ideas have found a warm welcome among Hindu nationalists who came to power in India in the early 1990s. In this passionate and highly original study, Indian-born author Meera Nanda reveals how these well-meaning but ultimately misguided ideas are enabling Hindu ideologues to propagate religious myths in the guise of science and secularism. At the heart of Hindu supremacist ideology, Nanda argues, lies a postmodernist assumption: that each society has its own norms of reasonableness, logic, rules of evidence, and conception of truth, and that there is no non-arbitrary, culture-independent way to choose among these alternatives. What is being celebrated as "difference" by postmodernists, however, has more often than not been the source of mental bondage and authoritarianism in non-Western cultures. The "Vedic sciences" currently endorsed in Indian schools, colleges, and the mass media promotes the same elements of orthodox Hinduism that have for centuries deprived the vast majority of Indian people of their full humanity. By denouncing science and secularization, the left was unwittingly contributing to what Nanda calls "reactionary modernism." In contrast, Nanda points to the Dalit, or untouchable, movement as a true example of an "alternative science" that has embraced reason and modern science to challenge traditional notions of hierarchy.