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

Manzoor H Dar, Alain de Janvry, Kyle Emerick (), David Raitzer and Elisabeth Sadoulet

Department of Agricultural & Resource Economics, UC Berkeley, Working Paper Series from Department of Agricultural & Resource Economics, UC Berkeley

Abstract: 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.

Keywords: 3002 Agriculture; Land and Farm Management (for-2020); 30 Agricultural; Veterinary and Food Sciences (for-2020); 3004 Crop and Pasture Production (for-2020); Adaptation; Physiological (mesh); Crops; Agricultural (mesh); Floods (mesh); Gene Expression Regulation; Plant (mesh); Oryza (mesh); Poverty Areas (mesh); Random Allocation (mesh); Satellite Imagery (mesh); Vulnerable Populations (mesh); Crops; Agricultural (mesh); Random Allocation (mesh); Adaptation; Physiological (mesh); Gene Expression Regulation; Plant (mesh); Poverty Areas (mesh); Vulnerable Populations (mesh); Floods (mesh); Satellite Imagery (mesh); Oryza (mesh); Adaptation; Physiological (mesh); Crops; Agricultural (mesh); Floods (mesh); Gene Expression Regulation; Plant (mesh); Oryza (mesh); Poverty Areas (mesh); Random Allocation (mesh); Satellite Imagery (mesh); Vulnerable Populations (mesh) (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013-01-01
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (30)

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