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Project properties |
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| Title | Scaling CSA in Bihar: Exploring different service provider business models to enhance the adoption of CSA technologies and practices by smallholder men and women farmers |
| Group | Management Studies Group |
| Project type | thesis |
| Credits | 36 |
| Supervisor(s) | Annemarie Groot (CALM) (The Netherlands)
Thomas B. Long (Management studies) (The Netherlands) ML Jat (CIMMYT) (India) Raj Kumar Jat (Borlaug Institute for South Asia) (India) |
| Examiner(s) | Thomas B. Long (Management studies) |
| Contact info | annemarie.groot@wur.nl |
| Begin date | 2017/01/15 |
| End date | |
| Description | In this project Wageningen UR closely works with CIMMYT, Borlaug Institute for South Asia (BISA) and other stakeholders to develop business models at climate-smart village sites as a strategy to scale climate-smart agriculture (CSA) technologies and practices in South Asia. The activity seeks to link farmers’ needs and climate smart farm products to private sector interests as a financially sustainable way of moving to scale. It explores how farmers’ adoption of CSA technologies and practices can be enhanced through involvement of private sector parties.
The thesis research will focus on scaling CSA through climate smart business models in Bihar, a state in East India. The results of the thesis research will be utilized in the Bihar Government’s proposed work on scaling CSA. Bihar can be characterized as being highly populated, having small farm holding size, poor input and output marketing infrastructure, poor access to new technologies and frequent climatic aberration (floods, drought and temperature). Agricultural productivity in Bihar is low primarily due to extreme climatic vulnerability. Water, energy and labour scarcity, increasing cost of production, diminishing farm profits and uncertain weather events are major challenges faced by the farmers under intensive tillage based conventional rice–wheat production system (Sutaliya, J.M. et al., 2016). The Government of Bihar gives high priority to the scaling of climate smart agriculture. The Department of Agriculture, Government of Bihar developed a project proposal on Scaling CSA through Mainstreaming Climate Smart Villages in Bihar. The proposal suggests the bundling of tailored climate smart interventions, capacity building and better linking farmers’ demand for CSA technologies & practices and their supply. Service providers (often entrepreneurial farmers) play an important role in the scaling model. They lease out CSA machineries and/ or sell services to farmers. It appears that service providers apply different business models to serve different farm types (or customers segments). A better understanding of these existing and potential CSA business models will help to engage them in serving smallholder men and women farmers with CSA technologies and practices. Increased access to, and adoption, of these technologies and practices will enable these farmers to better manage climate/weather related risks, reduce cost and /or increase their revenues. Future business models for service providers can be informed by recent research showing good results of combined use of multiple CSA technologies & practices. The thesis research aims to: • To identify and describe already existing business models for service providers who serve their customers in the access and use of climate smart technologies/ practices. • To identify and describe potential future business models for service providers. |
| Used skills | Qualitative analysis, conducting interviews and surveys in Indian context, document analysis.
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