Download or read book Intrahousehold preference heterogeneity and demand for labor saving agricultural technology The case of mechanical rice transplanting in India written by Kajal Gulati and published by Intl Food Policy Res Inst. This book was released on 2019-10-30 with total page 72 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book Intrahousehold Preference Heterogeneity and Demand for Labor Saving Agricultural Technology written by Kajal Gulati and published by . This book was released on 2019 with total page 72 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book Agricultural mechanization and gendered labor activities across sectors Micro evidence from multi country farm household data written by Takeshima, Hiroyuki and published by Intl Food Policy Res Inst. This book was released on 2021-12-07 with total page 37 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book The Economics of Household Decisions Gender and Agricultural Mechanization in India written by Kajal Gulati and published by . This book was released on 2017 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book Village and Household Economies in India s Semi arid Tropics written by T. S. Walker and published by . This book was released on 1990 with total page 424 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Gender and agricultural mechanization A mixed methods exploration of the impacts of multi crop reaper harvester service provision in Bangladesh written by Theis, Sophie and published by Intl Food Policy Res Inst. This book was released on 2019-05-14 with total page 48 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book Family Farming written by Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and published by . This book was released on 2016 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book Transforming Gender and Food Security in the Global South written by Jemimah Njuki and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-11-25 with total page 295 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book Crying Out for Change written by Deepa Narayan-Parker and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2000 with total page 342 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book Prophets Facing Backward written by Meera Nanda and published by Rutgers University Press. This book was released on 2003 with total page 334 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book Gender and Natural Resource Management written by Bernadette P. Resurreccion and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2012-05-31 with total page 286 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is about the gender dimensions of natural resource exploitation and management, with a focus on Asia. It explores the uneasy negotiations between theory, policy and practice that are often evident within the realm of gender, environment and natural resource management, especially where gender is understood as a political, negotiated and contested element of social relationships. It offers a critical feminist perspective on gender relations and natural resource management in the context of contemporary policy concerns: decentralized governance, the elimination of poverty and themainstreaming of gender. Through a combination of strong conceptual argument and empirical material from a variety of political economic and ecological contexts (including Cambodia, China, Indonesia, Malaysia, Nepal, Thailand and Vietnam), the book examines gender-environment linkages within shifting configurations of resource access and control. The book will serve as a core resource for students of gender studies and natural resource management, and as supplementary reading for a wide range of disciplines including geography, environmental studies, sociology and development. It also provides a stimulating collection of ideas for professionals looking to incorporate gender issues within their practice in sustainable development. Published with IDRC.
Download or read book World Development Report 2013 written by World Bank and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2012-10-15 with total page 423 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Jobs provide higher earnings and better benefits as countries grow, but they are also a driver of development. Poverty falls as people work their way out of hardship and as jobs empowering women lead to greater investments in children. Efficiency increases as workers get better at what they do, as more productive jobs appear, and less productive ones disappear. Societies flourish as jobs bring together people from different ethnic and social backgrounds and provide alternatives to conflict. Jobs are thus more than a byproduct of economic growth. They are transformational —they are what we earn, what we do, and even who we are. High unemployment and unmet job expectations among youth are the most immediate concerns. But in many developing countries, where farming and self-employment are prevalent and safety nets are modest are best, unemployment rates can be low. In these countries, growth is seldom jobless. Most of their poor work long hours but simply cannot make ends meet. And the violation of basic rights is not uncommon. Therefore, the number of jobs is not all that matters: jobs with high development payoffs are needed. Confronted with these challenges, policy makers ask difficult questions. Should countries build their development strategies around growth, or should they focus on jobs? Can entrepreneurship be fostered, especially among the many microenterprises in developing countries, or are entrepreneurs born? Are greater investments in education and training a prerequisite for employability, or can skills be built through jobs? In times of major crises and structural shifts, should jobs, not just workers, be protected? And is there a risk that policies supporting job creation in one country will come at the expense of jobs in other countries? The World Development Report 2013: Jobs offers answers to these and other difficult questions by looking at jobs as drivers of development—not as derived labor demand—and by considering all types of jobs—not just formal wage employment. The Report provides a framework that cuts across sectors and shows that the best policy responses vary across countries, depending on their levels of development, endowments, demography, and institutions. Policy fundamentals matter in all cases, as they enable a vibrant private sector, the source of most jobs in the world. Labor policies can help as well, even if they are less critical than is often assumed. Development policies, from making smallholder farming viable to fostering functional cities to engaging in global markets, hold the key to success.
Download or read book Technological and Institutional Innovations for Marginalized Smallholders in Agricultural Development written by Franz W. Gatzweiler and published by Springer. This book was released on 2016-02-19 with total page 442 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The aim of the book is to present contributions in theory, policy and practice to the science and policy of sustainable intensification by means of technological and institutional innovations in agriculture. The research insights re from Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. The purpose of this book is to be a reference for students, scholars and practitioners inthe field of science and policy for understanding and identifying agricultural productivity growth potentials in marginalized areas.
Download or read book Can Anyone Hear Us written by Deepa Narayan-Parker and published by . This book was released on 2000 with total page 364 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Voices of the Poor" 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.
Download or read book Political Ecology Mountain Agriculture and Knowledge in Honduras written by Kees Jansen and published by Purdue University Press. This book was released on 1998 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Box 400712 Washington D.C.
Download or read book Engendering Agricultural Research Development and Extension written by Ruth Meinzen-Dick and published by Intl Food Policy Res Inst. This book was released on 2011-01-01 with total page 154 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Challenges and Opportunities for Agricultural Intensification of the Humid Highland Systems of Sub Saharan Africa written by Bernard Vanlauwe and published by Springer. This book was released on 2014-10-07 with total page 399 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The humid highlands in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) are characterized by high population densities and require intensification. The Consortium for Improving Agriculture-based Livelihoods in Central Africa (CIALCA) has set up a research for development platform in various mandate areas in DR Congo, Burundi, and Rwanda, aiming to identify improved production, market, and nutrition options and facilitating the access for development partners to these options. This platform is supported by capacity building, multi-stakeholder dialogue, and monitoring and evaluation efforts. The conference, facilitated by CIALCA, aimed to (i) take stock of the state-of the art in agricultural intensification in the highlands of SSA and (ii) chart the way forward for agricultural research for development in the humid highlands of SSA, and more specifically in the recently launched Humidtropics Consortium Research Programme, through keynote, oral and poster presentations, and strategic panel discussions.
