How does drought-tolerant rice help farmers?

Evidence from randomized control trials in eastern India

SSD Seminar
March 13, 2015
Takashi Yamano and others*
* This paper is an output of a joint project between the International Rice Research Institute and University of California
at Berkeley. The Berkeley team is led by Dr. Alain de Janvery and Dr. Elisabeth Sadoulet. The funding for the study was
obtained from the Agricultural Technology Adoption Initiative (ATAI) project and the International Initiative for Impact
Evaluation (3ie). The names of the co-authors will be added later.

Presentation Outline
1. Introduction
2. Drought-tolerant Rice Variety
3. Randomized Control Trial: Study Design
4. Descriptive Analyses
1. Rice Yield
2. Cultivation of Rabi Crop after Kharif season
5. Estimation Models
6. Results
1. Yield Model
2. Cultivation of Rabi Crops
7. Conclusions

Introduction (1)
1. The Asian Green Revolution has increased rice yields in irrigated
areas and reduced poverty (Otsuka, Estudillo, and Sawada, 2013).
2. But farmers in rain-fed areas still have low yields, and drought
affects rice production in wide areas and can cause a severe
damage to it.
3. Climate Change is expected to worsen by increasing days with
extremely high temperature during cropping seasons (Tubiello et
al., 2007, Lobell et al., 2011).
4. Exposure to high temperature during rice flowering can greatly
reduce pollen viability which leads to yield losses (Matsui et al.,
2000).

Introduction (2)
5. Sahbhagi Dhan is a drought tolerant rice variety developed by
researchers at IRRI and its counterparts in India (Dar et al., 2014).
6. Sahbhagi Dhan is a short duration variety which can
avoid high temperature (see next slide)
allow farmers to cultivate second crops
7. The short duration of Sahbhagi Dhan can also allow farmers to
cultivate second crops (Rabi crops) after its harvest. This leads to
higher annual income and more diversified income source, making
farmers more resilient against drought or other negative shocks.
8. However, no study has evaluated Sahbhagi Dhans performance
among farmers.

Objectives of the study

To evaluate the impacts of adopting Sahbhagi Dhan among farmers
on
1. Yield under both normal and drought conditions
2. Agricultural practices, especially double cropping.

Monthly Rain in 2013 in Odisha

Monsoon

Kharif

500

Monthly rain in mm

1000

Rabi

Month in 2013

10

11

12

The monthly rainfall data are based on daily rainfall data from 40 Block Rainfall Stations where our
samples villages are located.

How Sahbhagi Dhan avoids Drought

Monsoon
(July)

November

Sahbhagi Dhan
Average Duration Rice
Long Duration Rice
(such as Swarna)

Flowering
Drought

December

How Sahbhagi Dhan allows Second Crops

Monsoon
(July)

November

December

Sahbhagi Dhan

Rabi Crops
Vegetables
Long Duration Rice
(such as Swarna)

Randomized Control Trial of Sahbhagi Dhan

1. In 2012, 128 treatment villages and 128 control villages
were randomly selected in West Bengal and Odisha, eastern
India. In all villages, 5 farmers were selected randomly.
2.

Sample farmers in the treatment villages received 5 kgs of

Sahbhagi Dhan seeds before Kharif 2012.

3. In 2013, we expanded the study areas by (1) taking 79

villages from the 2012 samples and (2) added 252 villages
across six districts in West Bengal, Odisha, and Jharkhand.
4. In total, we have 331 villages, 1,050 treatment and 1,050
control farmers.

Timing of interventions and surveys

2011
Ag. Season
RCT
Household Survey

2012

2013

2014

Estimation Models
By selecting treatment farmers randomly, we should be able to
control for unobserved household characteristics. But the treatment
households can still choose plots.
Thus, unobserved plot characteristics may be correlated with
independent variables in regression models.
Therefore, we estimate the plot-level fixed effects models:

Conclusion
In this paper we find:
1.Drought has a large negative impact on rice yield,
2.The average yield of Sahbhagi Dhan is lower than that of other rice
varieties under both normal and drought conditions. Reasons for the low
yields need to be identified.
3.The performance of Sahbhagi Dhan needs to be continued.
4.Shabhagi Dhan allows farmers to cultivate second crops. Thus, we
recommend that Sahbhagi Dhan to be promoted in areas where the
potential for double-cropping is under-exploited.