Sub1 Rice: Engineering Rice for Climate Change.

By the year 2100, the number of people on Earth is expected to increase by ∼50%, placing increasing demands on food production in a time when a changing climate is predicted to compromise crop yields. Feeding this future world requires scientifically informed innovations in agriculture. Here, we describe how a rice gene conferring tolerance to prolonged submergence has helped farmers in South and Southeast Asia mitigate rice crop failure during floods. We discuss how planting of this new variety benefited socially disadvantaged groups. This example indicates that investment in agricultural improvement can protect farmers from risks associated with a changing climate

Flood-tolerant rice reduces yield variability and raises expected yield, differentially benefitting socially disadvantaged groups.

Approximately 30% of the cultivated rice area in India is prone to crop damage from prolonged flooding. We use a randomized field experiment in 128 villages of Orissa India to show that Swarna-Sub1, a recently released submergence-tolerant rice variety, has significant positive impacts on rice yield when fields are submerged for 7 to 14 days with no yield penalty without flooding. We estimate that Swarna-Sub1 offers an approximate 45% increase in yields over the current popular variety when fields are submerged for 10 days. We show additionally that low-lying areas prone to flooding tend to be more heavily occupied by people belonging to lower caste social groups. Thus, a policy relevant implication of our findings is that flood-tolerant rice can deliver both efficiency gains, through reduced yield variability and higher expected yield, and equity gains in disproportionately benefiting the most marginal group of farmers

Ineficient water pricing and incentives for conservation

We use two randomized controlled trials in Bangladesh to study a simple water conservation technology for rice production called "Alternate Wetting and Drying (AWD)." Despite proven results in agronomic trials, our first experiment shows that AWD only saves water and increases profits in villages where farmers pay a marginal price for water, but not when they pay fixed seasonal charges. The second RCT randomly distributed debit cards that can be used to pay volumetric prices for irrigation water. This low-cost, scalable intervention causes farmers to place more value on the water-saving technology. Demand for the technology becomes less price-sensitive

Essays on behavioral responses to development interventions

This dissertation combines three papers which are all empirical analyses of agricultural interventions in developing countries. I focus on how new policies, technologies, and institutions affect the behavior of small-scale farmers in both Mexico and India. The first paper focuses on the certification of agricultural land in Mexico while the second and third papers focus on technology adoption in rural India.Chapter 1, which is based on joint work with Alain de Janvry, Marco Gonzalez-Navarro, and Elisabeth Sadoulet, shows that removing the link between active land use and ownership through certification leads to a reallocation of labor away from agriculture and towards migration. In particular, we use the rollout of the Mexican land certification program from 1993 to 2006 to show that households obtaining land certificates were subsequently 28% more likely to have a migrant member. This response was differentiated by initial land endowments, land quality, outside wages, and initial land security, as predicted by our model. Effects on land under cultivation were heterogeneous: in high land quality regions land under cultivation increased while in low quality ones it declined.Chapter 2, which is based on joint work with Alain de Janvry, Elisabeth Sadoulet, and Manzoor Dar, shows evidence that risk is an important factor that constrains the decisions made by small farmers. More specifically, the chapter reports results of a field experiment in Odisha India that quantifies the effects of Swarna-Sub1, a promising new rice seed that effectively reduces risk by sharply reducing the susceptibility of the crop to flood damage. In doing so, the chapter offers novel evidence on the effect of a direct reduction in production risk on economic behavior. Specifically, access to this new technology leads to increases in area cultivated, fertilizer used, and the likelihood of using a more modern planting method. Also, the technology reduces precautionary savings of grain for consumption and increases the use of agricultural credit. An important implication from the chapter is that technological progress that directly eliminates weather-induced production variability offers a promising method of advancing agriculture in areas that are prone to extreme weather.Chapter 3 builds on the promising results in Chapter 2 by studying diffusion of Swarna-Sub1. I provide an experimental test of whether informal exchange of Swarna-Sub1 between farmers produces an efficient allocation. I report results on a field experiment, also in Odisha, to compare decentralized trade of Swarna-Sub1 through networks with an approach where demand was revealed via door-to-door sales. While 84% of farmers are expected to gain from Swarna-Sub1, only 7% adopt in networks. Conversely, 40% of farmers adopt when demand is revealed in door-to-door sales. Using variation across the sample in estimated gains in revenue, I show that 63% of the gains from door-to-door sales are lost with decentralized trade through networks. Frictions preventing interactions between farmers from different social groups offer an explanation for the results. Sub-caste and surname association with suppliers are strong predictors of adoption in networks, but have no effect in door-to-door sales. The main implication from the chapter is that relying on exchanges between farmers to disseminate new seed varieties will not produce an allocation where demand is met

Essays on behavioral responses to development interventions

This dissertation combines three papers which are all empirical analyses of agricultural interventions in developing countries. I focus on how new policies, technologies, and institutions affect the behavior of small-scale farmers in both Mexico and India. The first paper focuses on the certification of agricultural land in Mexico while the second and third papers focus on technology adoption in rural India.Chapter 1, which is based on joint work with Alain de Janvry, Marco Gonzalez-Navarro, and Elisabeth Sadoulet, shows that removing the link between active land use and ownership through certification leads to a reallocation of labor away from agriculture and towards migration. In particular, we use the rollout of the Mexican land certification program from 1993 to 2006 to show that households obtaining land certificates were subsequently 28% more likely to have a migrant member. This response was differentiated by initial land endowments, land quality, outside wages, and initial land security, as predicted by our model. Effects on land under cultivation were heterogeneous: in high land quality regions land under cultivation increased while in low quality ones it declined.Chapter 2, which is based on joint work with Alain de Janvry, Elisabeth Sadoulet, and Manzoor Dar, shows evidence that risk is an important factor that constrains the decisions made by small farmers. More specifically, the chapter reports results of a field experiment in Odisha India that quantifies the effects of Swarna-Sub1, a promising new rice seed that effectively reduces risk by sharply reducing the susceptibility of the crop to flood damage. In doing so, the chapter offers novel evidence on the effect of a direct reduction in production risk on economic behavior. Specifically, access to this new technology leads to increases in area cultivated, fertilizer used, and the likelihood of using a more modern planting method. Also, the technology reduces precautionary savings of grain for consumption and increases the use of agricultural credit. An important implication from the chapter is that technological progress that directly eliminates weather-induced production variability offers a promising method of advancing agriculture in areas that are prone to extreme weather.Chapter 3 builds on the promising results in Chapter 2 by studying diffusion of Swarna-Sub1. I provide an experimental test of whether informal exchange of Swarna-Sub1 between farmers produces an efficient allocation. I report results on a field experiment, also in Odisha, to compare decentralized trade of Swarna-Sub1 through networks with an approach where demand was revealed via door-to-door sales. While 84% of farmers are expected to gain from Swarna-Sub1, only 7% adopt in networks. Conversely, 40% of farmers adopt when demand is revealed in door-to-door sales. Using variation across the sample in estimated gains in revenue, I show that 63% of the gains from door-to-door sales are lost with decentralized trade through networks. Frictions preventing interactions between farmers from different social groups offer an explanation for the results. Sub-caste and surname association with suppliers are strong predictors of adoption in networks, but have no effect in door-to-door sales. The main implication from the chapter is that relying on exchanges between farmers to disseminate new seed varieties will not produce an allocation where demand is met

Economic Organization and the Structure of Water Transactions

This paper analyzes the structure of water transactions using data on contract duration from California. Water rights in the western United States are transferred through short-term and longterm leases as well as permanent ownership contracts. We test predictions about the type of water contracts derived from the literature on economic organization by using ordered probit models to investigate the correlates of contract duration.We confirm that long-term and permanent contracts are more likely when investments in specific assets are required for conveyance. We also find that longer-term arrangements are common when buyers with uncertain water supplies purchase from sellers with more certain rights, suggesting that urban municipalities use long-term contracts to reduce risk. We do not find robust evidence supporting the hypothesis that short-term agreements are more likely when the costs of transfer to third parties are potentially high

Inefficient water pricing and incentives for conservation

We use two randomized controlled trials in Bangladesh to study a simple water conservation technology for rice production called “Alternate Wetting and Drying (AWD)”. Despite proven results in agronomic trials, our first experiment shows that AWD only saves water and increases profits in villages where farmers pay a marginal price for water, but not when they pay fixed seasonal charges. The second RCT randomly distributed debit cards that can be used to pay volumetric prices for irrigation water. This low-cost, scalable intervention causes farmers to place more value on the water-saving technology. Demand for the technology becomes less price-sensitive