The study has analysed the factors affecting adoption of improved forage technologies and its impact on milk yield and feed sufficiency in Bundelkhand region. We used propensity score matching (PSM) technique on cross-sectional data collected from 400 dairy farmers for impact evaluation and also conducted sensitivity analysis to examine the effect of uncontrolled confounders on the estimands. Our findings suggest that, education status, standard livestock unit, animal breed type, off-farm income activities, farm size and access to training, credit and market significantly influence adoption of improved forage technologies and practices. Further the adoption led to a significant increase in annual milk production (over 950 litres) and daily milk yield (1.15 to 2.04 litres) and also reduced time spent in feeding by around 2 hours during zaid season and around an hour during kharif season.

Summary Soil and water are crucial resources for agriculture, especially in arid and semi-arid rain-fed areas, yet farm-level economic impacts and the factors influencing the adoption of measures for their conservation are little studied. The present study used data from 400 farm households to assess factors influencing the adoption of soil and water conservation measures (SWCMs) and their impacts on farm productivity and income in a semi-arid region of central India. We employed a probit model to determine the factors influencing the on-farm adoption of SWCMs and a propensity score matching technique for assessing their impacts. The findings indicate that farmer age and education, off-farm income, farm size and land ownership and access to training are key drivers of the adoption of SWCMs. SWCMs accentuated the input costs by INR 1689–2847 per ha during the rabi cropping season (October–February), but also increased crop productivity and net revenue from farming. The impact in the rabi season was less sensitive to the unobserved confounders than in the kharif season (June–September). Therefore, SWCMs could represent an important strategy for unlocking the cultivation potential of large rain-fed areas and for sustaining the livelihoods of farm households in the ecologically fragile arid and semi-arid tropics.

Farming system research (FSR) is on-farm research that brings cutting-edge agricultural technologies to growers to enhance farm production, family income, and livelihood status. In 2007, an on-farm study was started on FSR in central India, and the effect was assessed after 5 yr (2012-2013) of implementation by comparing adopters and nonadopters of FSR-based promoted technologies. Further, in 2018-2019, the status of adoption of introduced technologies was also assessed. The study revealed that improved practices such as pre-sowing irrigation, high-yielding varieties, and crop protection measures collectively improved the system productivity of the adopters by 28%; the improved productivity was mainly due to increased yield of blackgram (Vigna mungo L., 157%), groundnut (Arachis hypogaea L., 34%), and wheat (Triticum aestivum L., 12%). Adoption of ration balancing and healthcare practices promoted under the FSR project accentuated the milk yield of farm animals (200 L yr -1 cattle -1 ) of adopters. The farm diversification and sustainable production practices under the FSR-based interventions increased family income of adopters by 35% (US$1,517.7 yr -1 ) and employment by 42%. Adopter households averaged a 33.76% higher return per unit of investment than nonadopters. The estimated change is primarily due to the non-neutral technological change. The findings of the study Abbreviations: FSR, farming system research; FYM, farmyard manure; VIF, variance inflation factor.

This study assessed the impact of improved green fodder production activities on technical efficiency (TE) of dairy farmers in climate vulnerable landscapes of central India. We estimated stochastic production frontiers, considering potential self-selection bias stemming from both observable and unobservable factors in adoption of fodder interventions at farm level. The empirical results show that TE for treated group ranges from 0.55 to 0.59 and that for control ranges from 0.41 to 0.48, depending on how biases are controlled. Additionally, the efficiency levels of both adopters and non-adopters would be underestimated if the selectivity bias is not appropriately accounted. As the average TE is consistently higher for adopter farmers than the control group, promoting improved fodder cultivation would increase input use efficiency, especially in resource-deprived small holder dairy farmers in the semi-arid tropics.