scholarly journals Experiences With Conservation Agriculture in the Eastern Gangetic Plains: Farmer Benefits, Challenges, and Strategies That Frame the Next Steps for Wider Adoption

2022 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anjana Chaudhary ◽  
Pragya Timsina ◽  
Bhavya Suri ◽  
Emma Karki ◽  
Akriti Sharma ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
South Asia ◽  
Conservation Agriculture ◽  
Economic Benefits ◽  
Gangetic Plains ◽  
Individual Interviews ◽  
Technical Performance ◽  
Development Organizations ◽  
The Government ◽  
Performance Challenges

While there are numerous studies that explore the agronomic and the economic benefits of Conservation Agriculture in South Asia, only few studies have explored the farmers' experiences and the drivers of its adoption. This study aims to learn directly from current users through exploration of their decision processes, evaluations, and experiences in extrapolating the concept for the broader scaling of Conservation Agriculture across the Eastern Gangetic Plains (EGPs) of South Asia. We analyzed a total of 57 qualitative and semi-structured individual interviews with the farmers who are currently implementing Conservation Agriculture practices across six locations. These farmers faced a variety of hurdles including hesitation in accepting and adopting the technology, technical performance challenges, information gaps, and subsidy/project dependence. To overcome these, respondents adopted various strategic approaches such as assuming the role of an educator by sharing their knowledge with other farmers in the community, changing mindsets for stover retention, adoption through self-investment, and opting for communal purchase of machinery to reduce project dependence. This led farmers to identify a range of benefits including improved socio-economic condition, increased respect in the community, and increased free time to pursue diverse interests and opportunities. Additionally, strengthened information networks such as improved interpersonal connection with agricultural universities, government extension systems, and local farmers groups have positively enhanced the uptake, allowing them to overcome further limitations. These findings provide novel learnings on how farmers overcome nine key friction points, and what this means for increasing the farmer uptake of new practices across the region, which are crucial for successful future interventions as implemented by the government and development organizations.

scholarly journals Determinants of People’s Participation in Forest Protection and Management: A Study in Kaski, Nepal

2016 ◽  
pp. 175-186 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yogesh Ranjit
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Protection ◽  
Forest Products ◽  
Economic Benefits ◽  
Forest Protection ◽  
The People ◽  
The Government ◽  
Indigenous Forest ◽  
Forest Plans ◽  
Indigenous Forest Management

Forests are easily available renewable natural resources in the world that directly and indirectly provide socio-economic benefits to the people living in and around the forests and also environmental protection and ecological balance to the global people. In Nepal, traditionally people’s participation in forest protection and sustainable management was very popular through many informal traditional and indigenous forest management committees. But, unfortunately, there was a huge lost of forests in quantity, quality and density due to some unfavorable socio-economic and political situations. So, the government has formally, legally and gradually shifted from centralized to decentralized protection and management of forests since mid of 1970’s through various forest plans, policies, acts, regulation and guidelines. The major aims of people’s participation are to get basic forest products, socio-economic development, and overall improvement of forest resources. Moreover, the role of I/NGOs and other stakeholders should be as partner, advisor, facilitator and more technical supporter for effective participation of people. However, the major challenges of people’s participation is how to make meaningful involvement of local people in better forest protection, management and sustainable development so that they will get sustainable economic benefits for livelihood, environmental protection and ecological balance.Economic Journal of Development Issues Vol. 17 & 18 No. 1-2 (2014) Combined Issue; Page: 175-186

Seven years of conservation agriculture in a rice–wheat rotation of Eastern Gangetic Plains of South Asia: Yield trends and economic profitability

2014 ◽  
Vol 164 ◽  
pp. 199-210 ◽  
Author(s):  
Raj Kumar Jat ◽  
Tek B. Sapkota ◽  
Ravi G. Singh ◽  
M.L. Jat ◽  
Mukesh Kumar ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
South Asia ◽  
Conservation Agriculture ◽  
Gangetic Plains ◽  
Yield Trends

scholarly journals The role of conservation agriculture in sustainable agriculture

2007 ◽  
Vol 363 (1491) ◽  
pp. 543-555 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter R Hobbs ◽  
Ken Sayre ◽  
Raj Gupta
Keyword(s):  
Conservation Tillage ◽  
Conservation Agriculture ◽  
Soil Disturbance ◽  
Cultivation System ◽  
Gangetic Plains ◽  
Minimal Impact ◽  
Northwest Mexico ◽  
No Till ◽  
Sustainable Cultivation

The paper focuses on conservation agriculture (CA), defined as minimal soil disturbance (no-till, NT) and permanent soil cover (mulch) combined with rotations, as a more sustainable cultivation system for the future. Cultivation and tillage play an important role in agriculture. The benefits of tillage in agriculture are explored before introducing conservation tillage (CT), a practice that was borne out of the American dust bowl of the 1930s. The paper then describes the benefits of CA, a suggested improvement on CT, where NT, mulch and rotations significantly improve soil properties and other biotic factors. The paper concludes that CA is a more sustainable and environmentally friendly management system for cultivating crops. Case studies from the rice–wheat areas of the Indo-Gangetic Plains of South Asia and the irrigated maize–wheat systems of Northwest Mexico are used to describe how CA practices have been used in these two environments to raise production sustainably and profitably. Benefits in terms of greenhouse gas emissions and their effect on global warming are also discussed. The paper concludes that agriculture in the next decade will have to sustainably produce more food from less land through more efficient use of natural resources and with minimal impact on the environment in order to meet growing population demands. Promoting and adopting CA management systems can help meet this goal.

scholarly journals Herbicides and Zero Tillage in South Asia: Are we creating a gendered problem?

2021 ◽  
pp. 003072702110138
Author(s):  
B Brown ◽  
E Karki ◽  
A Sharma ◽  
B Suri ◽  
A Chaudhary
Keyword(s):  
South Asia ◽  
Weed Management ◽  
Agricultural Development ◽  
Management Practices ◽  
Conservation Agriculture ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Clear Understanding ◽  
Zero Tillage ◽  
Tillage Systems ◽  
Gangetic Plains

Substantial efforts have been devoted to the promotion of Zero Tillage as part of a Conservation Agriculture based Sustainable Intensification agenda in the Eastern Gangetic Plains of South Asia, yet there is no clear understanding of the gendered implications of the required change in weed management practices from tillage to herbicides. Other geographies such as in Sub-Saharan Africa have shown evidence that transitioning to Zero Tillage may have unbalanced gendered implications that burden women with additional tasks or lead to lessening agency. To address this, a targeted in-depth study with both spouses was implemented in 24 households across Bangladesh, India and Nepal over a period of 5 weeks during crop establishment to understand the perceptions, responsibilities, and knowledge of household spouses who have adopted Zero Tillage systems. This data is used to compare their weeding responsibilities and knowledge between their Pre- and post- Zero Tillage uptake. Findings indicate that the switch to Zero Tillage contributed to substantial time savings in India and Nepal and did not lead to any reallocation or increased burden of roles and responsibilities to women in any of the surveyed localities, while knowledge on weed management practices were balanced among spouses. This research suggests that the gendered experiences of users of Zero Tillage systems and subsequent use of herbicides in investigated locations may differ from Zero Tillage user experience in other geographies, in that Zero Tillage use did not reinforce or deepen existing inequalities within households. This highlights that Zero Tillage may provide an inclusive agricultural development pathway in the Eastern Gangetic Plains of South Asia.

Conservation Agriculture: Perspectives on Soil and Environmental Management in Indo-Gangetic Plains of South Asia

2019 ◽  
pp. 123-168
Author(s):  
Rakesh Kumar ◽  
Kirti Saurabh ◽  
Narendra Kumawat ◽  
J. S. Mishra ◽  
Hansraj Hans ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Management ◽  
South Asia ◽  
Conservation Agriculture ◽  
Gangetic Plains

On retroeconomy

2017 ◽  
pp. 148-159
Author(s):  
V. Papava
Keyword(s):  
Developing Countries ◽  
Detrimental Effect ◽  
International Competition ◽  
The World ◽  
The Government ◽  
Role Of The Government

This paper analyzes the problem of technological backwardness of economy. In many mostly developing countries their economies use obsolete technologies. This can create the illusion that this or that business is prosperous. At the level of international competition, however, it is obvious that these types of firms do not have any chance for success. Retroeconomics as a theory of technological backwardness and its detrimental effect upon a country’s economy is considered in the paper. The role of the government is very important for overcoming the effects of retroeconomy. The phenomenon of retroeconomy is already quite deep-rooted throughout the world and it is essential to consolidate the attention of economists and politicians on this threat.

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