Productivity, profitability, and energetics: A multi-criteria assessment of farmers’ tillage and crop establishment options for maize in intensively cultivated environments of South Asia
Introduction
Increasing food production to meet growing demands is a major global challenge, particularly in the population-dense and impoverished South Asia, where smallholder agriculture predominates (Fischer et al., 2009). Traditionally, rice provides the largest carbohydrate source for most of South Asia’s farm families, although with increasing affluence and preferences for fish and poultry protein in diets, maize production has increased from 20.51 to 35.47 Mt in last decade, with grain sold primarily to the feed industry (FAOSTAT, 2015). Maize adoption has been especially high in Bangladesh, where it was cultivated on approximately 1500 ha in 1984, but area rose rapidly to about 0.20 M ha in 2007–2008 and to 0.36 M ha in 2012–2013, largely through the replacement of pulses, oilseeds and wheat (FAOSTAT, 2015).
Bangladesh’s alluvial soils and sub-tropical climate are largely suitable for maize, especially during the rabi (winter) season, with both yield potential and the current average yields (16 and 7 t ha−1, respectively), higher than the rest of South Asia (15 and 2.83 t ha−1, respectively) (DAE, 2014, FAOSTAT, 2015, Miah et al., 2013, Timsina et al., 2010, Timsina et al., 2011). Maize production in Bangladesh is mainly concentrated in the Northern, Western, and Eastern districts in agro-ecological zones (AEZs) 3, 11, and 19 (Ali et al., 2008, Hussain et al., 2012, Miah et al., 2013). Current production nonetheless lags below national demand, which is ∼1.5 Mt year−1 (Ali et al., 2008, DAE, 2014). Given the current and projected importance of maize cultivation in Bangladesh, identifying efficient and high-yielding production practices is a research and development imperative.
All agricultural inputs and operations require energy (Aghaalikhani et al., 2013, Barut et al., 2011, Kumar et al., 2013a, Rahman and Rahman, 2013), the majority of which comes from non-renewable and increasingly costly fossil fuels (Aghaalikhani et al., 2013). Increasing energy efficiency in South Asian agriculture is crucial for environmental and economic sustainability (Aravindakshan et al., 2015). To contextualize this importance from a public expenditure perspective, the Government of Bangladesh provided an estimated USD 1.4 billion—almost half of the total energy subsidy budget—to cover diesel requirements for intensive agricultural operations and dry season irrigation in 2012 (BIDS, 2012). Such expenditure stretches public budgets, with policy priorities now calling for novel agricultural practices to reduce wasteful expenditure (Qureshi et al., 2015).
After fertilizers and irrigation, land preparation and planting practices are considered the next most important energy component investment in conventionally managed agricultural systems (Aghaalikhani et al., 2013, Barut et al., 2011, Karimi et al., 2008, Shahin et al., 2008). Bangladesh’s maize farmers face challenging conditions for crop establishment that result in their use of intensive tillage following the monsoon season aman rice harvest (Gathala et al., 2015). To establish rabi maize following rice, farmers typically use 3–5 passes of a slow-speed power-tiller attached to a two-wheeled tractor (2WT), first to open the soil and facilitate drying where soils may be waterlogged, followed by subsequent passes to reduce soil clod size to achieve fine tilth on both poorly drained or more optimal soils. While power tillers use a rotary tillage system, their tine geometry and configuration, in addition to the slower speed of the rotary unit, tend to make them ineffective for single pass tillage, requiring multiple field operations to prepare fields beforehand planting. Repetitive tillage can require significant amounts of fuel and energy (Aravindakshan et al., 2015, Barut et al., 2011, Rahman and Rahman, 2013), and can result in increased production cost and reduced profit (Gathala et al., 2015), in addition to increased greenhouse gas emissions (Gathala et al., 2011a).
Alternative tillage and crop establishment options (TCEs) may however provide a strong foundation for maintaining or raising yields while increasing farmers’ income and reducing energy use. Where soils are not waterlogged following the aman rice harvest, residual soil moisture can sometimes limit optimal stand establishment in the subsequent season. Where this is the case, farmers have an incentive to reduce tillage through the use of specialized equipment that can be attached to two-wheel tractors to conserve soil water by limiting evaporative losses, so long as crop establishment and growth can be assured. Such equipment generally permits establishment in a single pass, while also facilitating machine-aided seed and fertilizer placement. Alternative TCE practices include the use of appropriate tillage and direct sowing machinery to encourage faster crop turnaround, which can potentially facilitate higher yields because of the inverse relationship between yields and sowing dates in Bangladesh (Krupnik et al., 2015a, Krupnik et al., 2015b). Alternative TCE techniques such as zero, strip, or reduced tillage, and raised and permanent beds, which further reduce fuel costs by eliminating repetitive tillage, and/or that can reduce irrigation requirements, have also been proposed (Gathala et al., 2011a, Gathala et al., 2013, Hobbs, 2007, Johansen et al., 2012, Timsina and Connor, 2001). Evidence from research stations is emerging across a range of crops that some of these techniques, when optimally managed, can facilitate improved crop establishment and timely sowing, maintain or increase yield (especially when paired with earlier sowing), lower production costs and energy use, and boost income, while improving system resilience (Connor et al., 2003, Gathala et al., 2011a, Gathala et al., 2013, Gathala et al., 2015, Jat et al., 2013, Kumar et al., 2013a, Timsina and Connor, 2001). Gathala et al. (2015), for example, demonstrated the ways in which reduced TCE systems can aid system yields in rice–maize (R–M) rotations in Bangladesh. However, adoption of reduced tillage in the rice part of South Asia’s cereal cropping sequences is relatively rare, as many farmers prefer to wet puddle rice, even when rotated with reduced or no-tilled maize or wheat (Erenstein and Laxmi, 2008).
However, apart from a handful of peer-reviewed studies that have considered some component aspects of agronomic sustainability (Gathala et al., 2015, Kadiyala et al., 2012, Talukder et al., 2008), there is insufficient evidence in the literature of integrated assessments of TCE options under farmer-management for maize in South Asia utilizing multi-criteria indicators that include measures of energetic along with economic and production efficiencies. This paper responds to this crucial knowledge gap by testing the hypothesis that zero and strip tillage, fresh or permanent bed planting, and reduced tillage options can maintain farmers’ yields while simultaneously boosting profits and energy use efficiency compared to conventional tillage, in a broad suite of Bangladesh’s leading maize producing AEZs. We consequently evaluated each of these alternative TCE options for rabi maize grown after rice in either puddled or unpuddled conditions across 4 years (from the 2009–2010 to 2012–2013 rabi seasons) of farmer-managed but researcher-backed on-farm trials involving 184 farmers in three AEZs in Northwestern and Eastern Bangladesh.
Section snippets
Agro-ecological zones, trial sites, and soil characteristics
On-farm trials with maize grown after rice were implemented during the rabi season for 4 years (from the 2009–2010 to 2012–2013 seasons), in the Rangpur (25°50′0″N; 89°0′0″E) and Rajshahi (25°0′0″N; 88°0′0″E) districts in AEZs 3 and 11, respectively, in Northwestern, and the Comilla (23°27′28″N, 91°12′15″E) district in AEZ 19 in Eastern Bangladesh (Fig. 1). Rajshahi is situated in the High Ganges River Floodplain, Comilla in the Old Meghna Estuarine Floodplain, and Rangpur spread over both the
Grain and biomass yield
Analysis of variance (ANOVA) for the effects of alternative TCE options revealed no significant year and year × treatment effects in any of the AEZs on grain and biomass yield, and HI of maize. Considering all AEZs together also, there were no significant AEZ, year, and year × treatment effects on those variables (ANOVA not shown). There was, however, a highly significant farmer effect (P ≤ 0.01) for all measured variables in all AEZs, due to farmers’ fields being scattered over a large area with
Discussion
In this study, we observed superior performance of maize under PBs and FBs in AEZs 3 and 11. These results are in agreement with studies on rice, wheat and maize under rice–wheat (R–W) and maize–wheat (M–W) systems on various soils in NW Indo-Gangetic Plain (IGP; Jat et al., 2013, Jat et al., 2014) and the Eastern IGP (Hossain et al., 2004), but disagree with similar or lower wheat yields in some other studies, also under R–W systems, on light-textured soils in NW IGP (Choudhury et al., 2006,
Conclusions
We conducted a multi-criteria assessment of different TCE options by partnering with 184 farmers in the main rabi maize growing AEZs in Northwestern and Eastern Bangladesh. We simultaneously evaluated productivity, profitability and energetics by comparing zero, reduced, and strip tillage, and fresh and permanent beds, compared to conventional tillage. Our data indicate that most alternative TCE options provide significant benefits across AEZs in terms of reductions in production cost and
Acknowledgements
This research was conducted under the Sustainable Intensification for Rice–Maize Production Systems in Bangladesh project (CIM-2007-122) funded by the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR) and jointly managed by International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) and International Centre for Maize and Wheat Improvement (CIMMYT). The contents and opinions expressed herein are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of ACIAR. Further support was
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