PATTERNS OF ADOPTION OF IMPROVED RICE VARIETIES IN STRESS-PRONE RAINFED AREAS OF SOUTH ASIA

D. Gauchan1, S. Pandey2, M. L. Malabayabas3, and M. Bool-Emerick4

1Former

postdoctoral fellow, 2former agricultural economist, 3assistant scientist, and 4 former associate scientist, Social Sciences Division, International Rice Research Institute, Los Baos, Philippines

P ercentage of households

South Asia has about 37% of the worlds total rice area in which approximately 50% is considered to be rainfed (Dawe et al 2010). However, most of these rainfed rice areas regularly suffer from various abiotic stresses such as droughts, floods, and salinity. Historical rice productivity trends in three areas of South Asia (Bangladesh, eastern India, and Nepal) show that growth in yield has been sluggish and unstable in rainfed areas due to the regular occurrence of abiotic and biotic stresses. Therefore, improving the productivity of rice through stress tolerance technologies is a key entry point to enhance the income and livelihood of resource-poor farmers in these stress-prone environments.

Adoption of modern varieties varied per location it ranged from full adopters to partial adopters (Fig. 2). However, in the case of saline-prone areas in Orissa (eastern India), a large number of farmers grew traditional varieties (TV) only due to limited access to improved varieties that are tolerant of salinity in those locations.
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Objectives
This paper aims to analyze patterns of varietal adoption and characterize the type of stress that usually occurs in these areas.

Methodology
The prevalence of stress (drought, submergence, and salinity) and the proportion of rainfed rice area were the two major criteria used in the selection of districts and study villages in Bangladesh, eastern India, and Nepal. A combination of household survey and rural appraisal (focus group discussion, key informant survey) methods was used to collect, complement, and triangulate field data across the sites under the STRASA project.

Districts

MV only

TV only

Both MV and TV

Fig. 2. Pattern of varietal adoption by farmers (%) across Bangladesh, eastern India, and Nepal, 2008.

High rates of adoption intensity and incidence of MVs were observed in most of the location surveyed, except in the saline areas of Kendrapara and Bhadrak (Orissa, eastern India) (Fig. 3).
100 90 Adoption (% area) 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 Adoption (% farm er)

Fig. 1. Map shows study sites of Stress-tolerant rice variety (STRASA) in Bangladesh, eastern India, and Nepal (Source: IRRI, GIS).

A random sampling framework was used to select households from purposefully selected villages of the target stress-prone environments. This resulted in a total of 1,908 household samples.

Major Findings

Fig.3. Intensity and incidence of MV adoption across locations in South

Asia, 2008. Drought and submergence occurred very frequently in the study areas, with annual frequency varying from 20% to 50%. On the other hand, salinity was found Among the adopted MVs, old-generation rice varieties such as Swarna, BR11, to be permanent phenomenon becoming more severe during the dry season and Masuli were found to dominate during the wet season in all areas, which than during the wet season (Table 1). indicates low varietal replacement (Table 3). Table 1. Characterization of stress situations at selected sites, 2008. Item Frequency Duration Timing Drought Once in 2-3 years 20-45 days Jun-Jul (early) Sep-Oct (terminal) Submergence Once in 2-5 years 3-30 days Jul-Sep Salinity (coastal) Regular Dry season & early wet season Mar-Jun Bangladesh Nepal Guti swarna/ Swarna (93%), TVs (2%) Masuli (13%), Janaki (12%), Radha-11 (11%), Radha-4 (10%), and TVs (14%) Eastern India Table 3. Major rice varieties grown during the wet season by type of stress in South Asia, 2008.
Drought Submergence Salinity

Swarna (39%), Lalat (20%), TVs (28%)

Ranjit (18%), Mahsuri (11%), Swarna (9%), TVs (38%) BR11 (63%) and TVs (10%)

Swarna (11%), TVs (65%)

BR10 (87%)

Sources: Focus group discussion (FGD) and key informant survey (KIS)

The rice farmers were considered smallholders; the average farm size of less than 1 hectare indicated the dominance of small farms (Table 2). Cropping intensity was low in Assam and Orissa (eastern India), while it was relatively high in Bangladesh. These findings are consistent with the official national statistics (Table 2).
Table 2. Farm characteristics and cropping intensity in South Asia. Country Bangladesh Nepal India West Bengal Assam Orissa Chhattisgarh
aNumbers

Conclusions and implications

Improved varieties have generally been widely adopted and spread in stressprone areas but most of these improved varieties are older of vintage (defined here as varieties released before 1990). Some of these vinatge varieties occupy substantial areas and are often known as mega-varieties. These mega-varieties generally have wide adaptability, desirable grain quality characteristics, and wellestablished marketing/processing channels. The dominance of mega-variety Swarna in eastern India and BR11 in Bangladesh in stress-prone rainfed environments provides a good justification for STRASAs strategy of incorporating SUB1 and other stress-tolerance genes in these mega-varieties. Under a changing climatic scenario, this will likely increase the magnitude of impact and impact domain beyond stress-prone areas by accelerating farmers varietal adoption .

Average farm size % marginal farms (ha) (<1 ha) 0.80 0.89 0.70 1.47 1.50 2.80 76 83 75 41 41 11

Cropping intensity (%) 168 (176) 165 (155) 142 (182) 99 (129) 117 (151) 140 (121)

in parentheses pertain to national-level averages and are derived from national statistics.