Overview
Researchers
Steven Brownstone
Economics PhD Student at UC San Diego
- Country
- India
- Timeline
- 02/13/2023 - 09/30/2024
- Constraints
- Gender, Labor
- Technology Category
- Labor
- Sample
- 361 villages
A farmer uses a drum seeder in India. Steven Brownstone | UC San Diego
In low-and middle-income countries, agricultural mechanization technologies present an opportunity to increase labor productivity However, for many reasons, small-scale farmers do not adopt mechanization technologies. While mechanization can boost how much each worker can produce, how this translates to broader economic gains can depend on how the labor market responds In partnership with local government leaders and agricultural extension agents, the researcher conducted a randomized evaluation to test the impact of promoting a mechanization technology on farmers’ productivity, including yields, labor costs, and profits, as well as impacts to the broader labor market, specifically women’s labor and wages Researchers found that combining government farmer training infrastructure with access to drum seeder rentals nearly tripled the adoption of drum seeders, maintained yields, and increased farmers’ profits during both years of the evaluation.
Policy issue
Mechanized farm production is a feature of modern, intensive agriculture that can improve agricultural labor productivity by reducing unskilled labor hours completing arduous tasks in many low- and middle-income countries. Despite potential gains from mechanization, small-scale farmers face challenges in adopting mechanizing technologies due to factors such as high up-front costs, limited availability, or lack of information. In India, local governments could provide access to mechanization technology through affordable rentals while leveraging training from governmental extensionists. Can local leaders’ influence paired with the existence of an equipment rental market encourage small-scale farmers to adopt a new, labor-saving technology?
Another important question is how labor-saving technologies effect the overall village economy. While farming households’ benefit, other households who have limited land of their own and rely primarily on supplying labor to other households may have to find other sources of income. Unlike many studies of agriculture productivity improvements, the study was designed to measure these displacement effects.
Context of the evaluation
In India, 70 percent of rural households depend on agriculture for their livelihoods, and rice production is particularly important to the economy and labor force. [1] In Telangana, India, most small-scale rice farmers produce for and sell to the government-owned Food Corporation for a set price, and women are heavily involved in the labor-intensive activities, like transplanting rice seedlings. Telangana has two rice-growing seasons: a wet season (June to October) when most cultivation occurs, and a dry season (November to March).
Drum seeders are agricultural machines that evenly dispense pre-soaked seeds across rice fields, with labor-saving benefits. For example, one drum seeder can plant one hectare of land in one day. In contrast, manual transplanting one hectare can take ten laborers two days. Additionally, drum seeders decrease water requirements associated with rice cultivation, which may help farmers adapt to unpredictable rainfall or irrigation. Farmers must modify their practices when using drum seeders, particularly ensuring well-leveled fields to avoid deep water puddles that prevent rice germination.
The Indian Government estimates approximately 8 percent of farmers engage in drum seeding across four central Indian states, but the State of Telangana has distributed drum seeders with limited success due to lack of information on how to use them correctly or misaligned incentives for government extension agents to encourage farmers to use them. [2] In Telangana, drum seeder rentals were available to small-scale farmers through local political leaders and extensionists. Most farmers in eligible villages owned or cultivated approximately 2 hectares of land or less.
Details of the intervention
In partnership with the Department of Agriculture’s extension agents and local village leaders, the researcher conducted a randomized evaluation to test the impact of promoting a mechanization technology and subsequent productivity gains impact on agricultural laborers, specifically women. Each village involved in this study was enrolled because the elected leader of the village was interested in promoting the technology believing it to be generally beneficial. The village leaders promoted the devices and worked with the local extensionist to ensure farmers were given proper agronomic information and support.
The researcher randomly assigned 342 villages into two groups:
- Drum Seeder Rentals (205 villages and approximately 70,000 farmers): Farmers from villages in this group were offered access to rental drum seeders managed by extensionists and locally-elected leaders. The rental price, INR 250 or approximately USD $3 per day, was set to correspond with median rental prices in districts where drum seeders were already available. Income from the rentals was deposited into the village’s bank account for spending on agricultural development projects.
- Status quo extension (137 villages and approximately 50,000 farmers): Farmers from villages assigned to this group served as the comparison. As such, extensionists continued their status quo practice of informing the farmers who attended extension meetings about drum seeders.
The study measures the technology’s impact during the 2023 wet season. Prior to this season and during an earlier pilot study, drum seeders were delivered to participating villages to establish their rental service. After planting, but before harvest, the researcher surveyed approximately 2,200 farmers’, then followed up during the 2024 dry season to collect data on drum seeder adoption rates, farming costs and revenues, labor hours saved (both household and hired), task-specific wages, self-reported yields, and remote sensing measures. The researcher also measured work locations and government-specific job scheme utilization from 1,400 female laborer participants to understand if a disruption to agricultural work led women to turn to wage work outside the farm.
Results and policy lessons
Researchers found that combining government farmer training infrastructure with access to drum seeder rentals nearly tripled the adoption of drum seeders, maintained yields, and increased farmers’ profits during both years of the evaluation. At the labor market level, increased mechanization led to both a decrease in labor demanded for transplanting and lower wages per acre for female laborers.
Drum seeder adoption: On average, the access to drum seeder rentals led to a 257 percent increase in drum seeded acreage compared to villages receiving status quo extension (50 acres compared to 14 acres). In participating villages, the subset of farmers experimenting with drum seeders was relatively small, and increased from 1 percent to 4 percent (about 12 additional farmers per village). Adoption was highly uneven across participating villages, and more educated farmers with more land were more likely to adopt drum seeders. Farmers in villages with the highest uptake tended to have previous experience with drum seeders, suggesting that learning from peers is an important factor in this context.
Farm productivity and profits: Farmers in participating villages employed 7 percent less hired female laborers per acre (10 fewer hired laborers per transplanted acre). They did not replace this with family labor, nor did they spend more on other farm inputs. Farmers in participating villages maintained similar yields and achieved 9 percent higher rice profits per acre than comparison villages (US$236.39 compared to US$216.11). Farmers in participating villages who did not adopt drum seeders also benefited from lower input costs due to the decrease in transplanting wages.
Labor market effects: Farmers in participating villages did not need as many laborers to transplant rice seedlings. Subsequently, wages per acre for transplanting were 6 percent lower in participating villages than in comparison villages [INR$5,440.91 (USD$65.91) compared to INR$5,776.75 (USD$69.98)]. Workers in these participating villages reported a greater shortage of workfare jobs (6 days shortfall of paid manual work compared to 4 days in comparison villages), suggesting that workers could not immediately find paid manual work.
Together, these results suggest that while there are barriers to mechanization in small-scale agriculture, local governments can implement small-scale rental programs to help farmers earn higher profits. Even though relatively few farmers adopted the technology in the initial seasons covered by the study, all farmers in participating villages benefited from reduced transplanting costs. However, transplanting laborers, who are mostly women in this context, reported greater unmet demand for work, suggesting that workers struggled to transition to other employment in the short run. Pairing programs that target female labor force participation with programs promoting mechanization could be a promising solution to maximize overall welfare, but more research is needed.
[1] https://www.fao.org/india/fao-in-india/india-at-a-glance/en/
[2] Suresh Malhotra. 2021. “National Conference on Agriculture (Kharif Campaign – 2021) Rabi Review & Kharif Prospects.” Ministry of Agriculture & Farmer Welfare.