Abstract only

Bangladesh has made notable progress in sustaining a respectable growth in food grain production over the last three decades through large-scale adoption of modem rice varieties. This is despite the declining availability of arable land and predominance of small farmers and landless agricultural laborers. Recent studies analyzing secondary data have indicated moderate improvements in poverty for both the rural and urban population. In order to understand the impact pathways of rice research on the welfare of the poor, this paper analyzes the differential adoption of improved rice varieties across socially differentiated groups and the effect of adoption on productivity, employment, profitability, and asset accumulation. It also attempts to explain how resource-poor households have gained or lost from changes in livelihood strategies and outcomes induced by productivity growth in rice cultivation, especially mediated by key institutions and infrastructure development. The paper utilizes two-point (1987-88 and 1999-2000) sample household survey data on the operation of the rural economy for a subset of a nationally representative sample drawn by the Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies in 1987. The sample for the 1987 survey was drawn using a multi-stage random sampling method and consisted of 1,240 sample households from 62 villages belonging to 57 districts. The 1999-2000 survey selected half of those villages, which represented different rice ecosystems and infrastructure development, and drew a sample of 30 households from each village using the wealth- ranking method. The surveys generated information on sources of household vulnerability, asset bases, livelihood strategies, and conventional economic indicators of outcomes, including self-perceptions of poverty status. The paper analyzes the quantitative information using the sustainable livelihood framework and tests hypotheses through focus group discussions conducted in a few selected villages within the sample. The analysis covers the following issues: a) changes in the asset base for socially differentiated groups in technologically progressive and backward villages and how they affect livelihood strategies; b) determinants of the adoption of modem rice technology using a Tobit model incorporating biophysical and socio- economic factors; c) the impact of technology adoption on productivity of inputs, profitability, household incomes, and asset accumulation for households stratified by livelihood strategies and; d) the relationship between growth in rice productivity and income generated for the resource poor households in rural non-farm activities using the village level data within a multi-variate regression model.

English

0310|R01CIMPU|AGRIS 0301|AL-Economics Program

Juan Carlos Mendieta

CIMMYT Publications Collection