AUTHOR=Chaudhary Anjana , Timsina Pragya , Suri Bhavya , Karki Emma , Sharma Akriti , Sharma Rama , Brown Brendan 

TITLE=Experiences With Conservation Agriculture in the Eastern Gangetic Plains: Farmer Benefits, Challenges, and Strategies That Frame the Next Steps for Wider Adoption

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Agronomy

VOLUME=Volume 3 - 2021

YEAR=2022

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/agronomy/articles/10.3389/fagro.2021.787896

DOI=10.3389/fagro.2021.787896

ISSN=2673-3218

ABSTRACT=While there are numerous studies that explore the agronomic and economic benefits of Conservation Agriculture in South Asia, few studies have explored farmer’s experiences with and drivers of its adoption. This study aims to learn directly from current users through exploring their decision processes, evaluations, and experiences to extrapolate what that means for the broader scaling of Conservation Agriculture across the Eastern Gangetic Plains of South Asia. A total of 57 qualitative individual semi-structured interviews with the farmers who are currently implementing Conservation Agriculture practices across six locations were analyzed. These farmers faced a variety of hurdles including hesitation in accepting and adopting the technology, technical performance challenges, information gaps, and subsidy/ project dependence. To overcome this, respondents adopted various strategic approaches such as assuming the role of an educator by sharing their knowledge with other farmers in the community, changing mindsets for stover retention, and adoption through self-investment and opting for communal purchase of machinery to reduce project dependence. This led farmers to identify a range of benefits including improved socio-economic condition, increased respect in the community, and increased free time to pursue diverse interests and opportunities. Strengthened information networks such as improved interpersonal connection with agricultural universities, government extension systems, and local farmers groups also positively enhanced the uptake, allowing them to overcome further limitations. These findings provide novel learnings on how farmers overcome nine key friction points, and what this means for increasing farmer uptake of new practices across the region, which are crucial to successful future interventions implemented by government and development organizations.