Impacts of soil and water conservation measures on farm technical efficiency in the semi-arid tropics of central India

IF 2.2 3区环境科学与生态学 Q2 BIODIVERSITY CONSERVATION

Environmental Conservation Pub Date : 2024-05-30 DOI:10.1017/s0376892924000146

Priyanka Singh, Bishwa Bhaskar Choudhary, Purushottam Sharma, Sunil Kumar, Inder Dev, Ramesh Singh, Kaushal K Garg, Khem Chand, Asha Ram, Naresh Kumar, A Arunachalam

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引用次数: 0

Abstract

Summary Natural resources such as soil and water are essential to agriculture, especially in arid and semi-arid rain-fed areas, yet the impacts of managing these crucial natural resources on farm technical efficiency are little known. Using data from 400 households with 1031 plots, we examined the impacts of soil and water conservation measures (SWCMs) on the technical efficiency of farmers in the semi-arid Bundelkhand (central India). We estimated stochastic production frontiers, considering potential self-selection bias stemming from both observable and unobservable factors in the adoption of SWCMs at the farm level. The farm technical efficiency for adopters of SWCMs ranged from 0.68 to 0.72, and that for non-adopters ranged from 0.52 to 0.65, depending on how biases were controlled for. As the average efficiency is consistently higher for adopter farmers than the control group, promoting SWCMs could help to increase input use efficiency, especially in resource-deprived rain-fed systems in the semi-arid tropics.

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印度中部半干旱热带地区水土保持措施对农业技术效率的影响

摘要水土等自然资源对农业至关重要，尤其是在干旱和半干旱的雨水灌溉地区，但管理这些关键自然资源对农业技术效率的影响却鲜为人知。利用来自 400 户家庭 1031 块地的数据，我们研究了水土保持措施（SWCMs）对半干旱邦德尔坎德邦（印度中部）农民技术效率的影响。考虑到在农场层面采用水土保持措施时可观察到和不可观察到的因素可能导致的自我选择偏差，我们估算了随机生产前沿。根据控制偏差的方式，采用全部门耕作机械的农场技术效率在 0.68 至 0.72 之间，未采用者的技术效率在 0.52 至 0.65 之间。由于采用者的平均效率始终高于对照组，因此推广全部门耕作方法有助于提高投入品的使用效率，特别是在半干旱热带地区资源匮乏的雨水灌溉系统中。

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来源期刊

Environmental Conservation 环境科学-环境科学

CiteScore

5.20

自引率

3.70%

发文量

审稿时长

>36 weeks

期刊介绍： Environmental Conservation is one of the longest-standing, most highly-cited of the interdisciplinary environmental science journals. It includes research papers, reports, comments, subject reviews, and book reviews addressing environmental policy, practice, and natural and social science of environmental concern at the global level, informed by rigorous local level case studies. The journal"s scope is very broad, including issues in human institutions, ecosystem change, resource utilisation, terrestrial biomes, aquatic systems, and coastal and land use management. Environmental Conservation is essential reading for all environmentalists, managers, consultants, agency workers and scientists wishing to keep abreast of current developments in environmental science.