According To New Study, Mini-Tillers Benefits Nepalese Maize Farmers Increase Their Food Supplies And Profits
The use of lightweight, 5-9-horsepower mini-tillers by smallholder farmers in Nepal's mid-hills reduced tillage costs while increasing maize yields by facilitating timely maize cultivation, enhancing food self-sufficiency and farm profits while reducing rural poverty, according to a new study by an international team of scientists.
The use of lightweight, 5-9-horsepower mini-tillers by smallholder farmers in Nepal's mid-hills reduced tillage costs while increasing maize yields by facilitating timely maize cultivation, enhancing food self-sufficiency and farm profits while reducing rural poverty, according to a new study by an international team of scientists.
The study, published in the Journal of Economics and Development, reports the findings of an on-farm survey involving more than 1,000 representative households from six districts in the mid-hills, a region of steep and broken terrain where rainfed maize is a staple crop, outmigration of working-age inhabitants makes farm labor scarce and expensive, and farmers on small, fragmented landholdings typically till plots by hand or with ox-drawn ploughs.
"Conventional two- or four-wheel tractors are difficult to operate in the rugged topography of the mid-hills," said Gokul P. Paudel, lead author of the study and researcher with the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and Leibniz University, Hannover, Germany. "Farms are small, so mini-tillers are ideal. The adoption of mini-tillers benefited the smallest farms — those with less than 0.4 hectares of land and are not normally served by hired farm labor or larger machinery."
According to Tim Krupnik, CIMMYT systems agronomist and study co-author, the science team discovered that farm size, labor shortages, draught animal scarcity, and market proximity are major factors that facilitate the adoption of appropriate mechanization in Nepal.
"Smallholder farms dominate more than two-thirds of global agricultural systems," Krupnik said. "There is a growing interest in scale-appropriate farm mechanization, particularly among donors and governments, and practical empirical measures of its impact are critical." The latest study's findings close this knowledge gap and provide enough evidence to prioritize the spread of appropriate technologies among smallholder farmers.
Krupnik noted that, for nearly four decades, CIMMYT has worked with Nepali scientists and development partners, including the Nepal Agricultural Research Council (NARC) and the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock Development (MoALD), to increase the productivity and sustainability of the country's maize and wheat-based farming systems through its Nepal office and strong shared research and capacity-building activities.
In addition to strong government partnerships, CIMMYT works closely with a variety of non-governmental organizations in Nepal, as well as privately owned farm machinery manufacturers, retailers, and mechanics.
The described study was funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the US Agency for International Development (USAID), the Academy for International Agricultural Research (ACINAR), which was commissioned by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) and carried out by ATSAF e.V. on behalf of the Deutsche Gesellschaft fur Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH, and the One CGIAR Regional Integrated Initiative Transforming Agrifood Systems in Southern Africa.
STORY CREDIT:- CIMMYT International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center
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