ORCID Profile
0000-0002-4498-6399
Current Organisation
CSIRO
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Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 11-03-2020
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 07-2023
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 05-02-2020
DOI: 10.1002/AEPP.13012
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 06-2018
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 29-01-2018
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 16-02-2018
Publisher: Frontiers Media SA
Date: 03-01-2022
DOI: 10.3389/FAGRO.2021.787896
Abstract: While there are numerous studies that explore the agronomic and the economic benefits of Conservation Agriculture in South Asia, only few studies have explored the farmers' experiences and the drivers of its adoption. This study aims to learn directly from current users through exploration of their decision processes, evaluations, and experiences in extrapolating the concept for the broader scaling of Conservation Agriculture across the Eastern Gangetic Plains (EGPs) of South Asia. We analyzed a total of 57 qualitative and semi-structured in idual interviews with the farmers who are currently implementing Conservation Agriculture practices across six locations. These farmers faced a variety of hurdles including hesitation in accepting and adopting the technology, technical performance challenges, information gaps, and subsidy roject dependence. To overcome these, 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, 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 erse interests and opportunities. Additionally, strengthened information networks such as improved interpersonal connection with agricultural universities, government extension systems, and local farmers groups have 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 the farmer uptake of new practices across the region, which are crucial for successful future interventions as implemented by the government and development organizations.
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 30-06-2021
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 22-08-2023
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 08-06-2017
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Date: 06-05-2021
DOI: 10.1177/00307270211013823
Abstract: Substantial efforts have been devoted to the promotion of Zero Tillage as part of a Conservation Agriculture based Sustainable Intensification agenda in the Eastern Gangetic Plains of South Asia, yet there is no clear understanding of the gendered implications of the required change in weed management practices from tillage to herbicides. Other geographies such as in Sub-Saharan Africa have shown evidence that transitioning to Zero Tillage may have unbalanced gendered implications that burden women with additional tasks or lead to lessening agency. To address this, a targeted in-depth study with both spouses was implemented in 24 households across Bangladesh, India and Nepal over a period of 5 weeks during crop establishment to understand the perceptions, responsibilities, and knowledge of household spouses who have adopted Zero Tillage systems. This data is used to compare their weeding responsibilities and knowledge between their Pre- and post- Zero Tillage uptake. Findings indicate that the switch to Zero Tillage contributed to substantial time savings in India and Nepal and did not lead to any reallocation or increased burden of roles and responsibilities to women in any of the surveyed localities, while knowledge on weed management practices were balanced among spouses. This research suggests that the gendered experiences of users of Zero Tillage systems and subsequent use of herbicides in investigated locations may differ from Zero Tillage user experience in other geographies, in that Zero Tillage use did not reinforce or deepen existing inequalities within households. This highlights that Zero Tillage may provide an inclusive agricultural development pathway in the Eastern Gangetic Plains of South Asia.
Publisher: Elsevier
Date: 2021
Publisher: Springer Singapore
Date: 2021
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 02-2021
Publisher: Cambridge University Press (CUP)
Date: 2023
DOI: 10.1017/S1742170523000066
Abstract: Conservation agriculture-based sustainable intensification (CASI) is gaining prominence as an agricultural pathway to poverty reduction and enhancement of sustainable food systems among government and development actors in the Eastern Gangetic Plains (EGP) of South Asia. Despite substantial investment in research and extension programs and a growing understanding of the agronomic, economic and labor-saving benefits of CASI, uptake remains limited. This study explores farmer experiences and perspectives to establish why farmers choose not to implement CASI systems despite a strong body of recent scientific evidence establishing the benefits of them doing so. Through thematic coding of semi-structured interviews, key constraints are identified, which establishes a narrative that current households' resources are insufficient to enable practice change, alongside limited supporting structures for resource supplementation. Such issues create a dependency on subsidies and outside support, a situation that is likely to impact any farming system change given the low-risk profiles of farmers and their limited resource base. This paper hence sets out broad implications for creating change in smallholder farming systems in order to promote the adoption of sustainable agricultural technologies in resource-poor smallholder contexts, especially with regard to breaking the profound poverty cycles that smallholder farmers find themselves in and which are unlikely to be broken by the current set of technologies promoted to them.
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 08-2021
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 05-2017
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 10-2021
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Date: 18-03-2023
DOI: 10.1177/09731741221141151
Abstract: 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 ersification 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 ersification, 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 erse livelihood strategies.
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 03-2022
Publisher: Cambridge University Press (CUP)
Date: 14-02-2019
DOI: 10.1017/S1742170518000108
Abstract: If the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals are to be achieved, African smallholder farmers will need to embrace new technologies such as conservation agriculture (CA) in order to increase both their productivity and sustainability. Yet farmers have been slow to embrace CA and when they have, they are inclined to do so at limited intensities. Current investigations tend to apply binary frameworks that classify all utilizations as ‘adoption’, and do not consider in depth the farmer perspectives and contextual realities that affect farmer decision-making on the intensity of use. We analyze 57 in-depth, semi-structured interviews with farmers who implement CA to understand why they tend to do so at limited intensities and what is required to intensify their CA activities, both for them and others within their communities. While most farmers reported substantial yield benefits from using CA, this was mainly related to input intensification (particularly herbicides) and was limited by constrained financial resources. Overall, the intensity of CA utilization was constrained due to farmer-identified constraints across their physical, financial, human and informational resources. Because of this, stagnation at low intensities of CA utilization was common, reflecting the assumed transformational adoption pathway for CA and the focus on binary adoption, as opposed to modification and the broader utilization process. To overcome this, we propose a more nuanced transitional approach focused on the intensification of four broader principles of CA over time [i.e., (1) strategic tillage, (2) soil protection, (3) crop ersification and (4) input management] as opposed to the strict packaging of CA practices. Such a change in approach will foster increased positive perceptions within the community and allow farmers to locally adapt CA to build their own way toward complete CA utilization and with less need for subsidization.
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 04-05-2018
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 16-12-2022
DOI: 10.1002/JID.3592
Abstract: Nepal 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.
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 04-2018
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 02-09-2023
Location: Australia
Location: Australia
Location: Ghana
No related grants have been discovered for Brendan Brown.