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

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...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Scientific reports Vol. 3; no. 1; p. 3315
Main Authors: Dar, Manzoor H., de Janvry, Alain, Emerick, Kyle, Raitzer, David, Sadoulet, Elisabeth
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: London Nature Publishing Group UK 22.11.2013
Nature Publishing Group
Subjects:
631/208/8
631/61/447/2312
Adaptation, Physiological - genetics
At risk populations
Crop damage
Crop yield
Crops, Agricultural - growth & development
Cultivation
Flood damage
Flooding
Floods
Gene Expression Regulation, Plant
Grain cultivation
Humanities and Social Sciences
multidisciplinary
Oryza - growth & development
Poverty Areas
Random Allocation
Rice
Satellite Imagery
Science
Submergence
Vulnerable Populations
Orissa India
India
ISSN:2045-2322, 2045-2322
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary: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.
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ISSN:2045-2322
2045-2322
DOI:10.1038/srep03315