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AbstractNepal Terai has historically had higher rates of mechanisation compared to the rest of the country and has the potential to expand and intensify its constrained agricultural productivity through agricultural mechanisation for smallholder farmers. This review provides a timely reflection on the pathways in which mechanisation has occurred in India and Bangladesh to inform the development of future mechanisation pathways and policies for Nepal Terai. Findings highlight the need to prioritise agricultural research, improve credit access, invest in human resources, incentivise local manufacturing and reassess extension services to address the needs of the farmers in Nepal Terai.

Impact evaluations are dominated by the application of development economics to assess the direct impacts of change at the plot level, while studies that focus on the impact of such plot-level changes on livelihoods remain rare. This raises questions about the 'so-what' of the adoption of labour and money-saving practices such as Zero Tillage to the livelihoods of smallholder farmers. Piloting a qualitative photovoice methodology with 25 South Asian households, the priorities and strategies of resource-poor South Asian smallholder farmers are explored when they have freed time and financial resources available. Various activities related to agricultural and livelihood diversification are linked by informants to broader impacts on their resilience, life satisfaction and broader livelihood outcomes. Despite being a pilot qualitative study, results indicate that cereal system intensification may be synergistic and not antagonistic to crop and livelihood diversification, especially if framed in whole-of-livelihood-focused initiatives that look for opportunities to utilize saved resources. Likewise, the value of humanizing research through qualitative participatory methods that centre 'people rather than plots' is highlighted through the broad linkages that informants identified from their diverse livelihood strategies.

AbstractIn this article, we have analysed farmers' awareness about Minimum Support Price (MSP) and its impact on diversification of crops grown in India. We used nationally representative data collected by National Sample Survey Office, 70th round data. The data revealed that only 23.72 and 20.04 per cent of farmers in the rural agricultural households in India are aware of MSP of crops grown by them in kharif and rabi season, respectively. From the results of probit model, it is inferred that MSP needs to be backed up by effective procurement coupled with awareness creation by extension system to enable more number of farmers to take benefit of this safety net. We have also explored the relationship between farmers' awareness about MSP and decision to go for crop specialization using Heckman selection model. The study shows that farmers' knowledge of MSP had not lead to specialization.