Maize in India: Production Systems, Constraints - AgEcon Search

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4. Priority Constraints for Research
To develop a demand-driven maize R&D plan, it is
important to systematically prioritize the abiotic, biotic,
and socio-economic constraints discussed earlier. An
objective and analytically driven R&D program is
expected to improve research ef ficiency. This chapter is
devoted to assessing and prioritizing constraints to
maize production, particularly in the upland areas of
India.
4.1 Methodology
Earlier, Widawsky and O’Toole (1996), Ramasamy et al.
(1997), and Roy and Datta (2000) prioritized production
constraints based on the yield gap concept. These
studies assumed that the gap between yields produced
in on-farm demonstrations and in farmers’ fields was
due to abiotic, biotic, and socio-economic constraints,
and sub-divided the causes of the yield gap into several
prevailing constraints. These authors argue that the
technology is already available, and that the yield gap
was essentially due to lack of information or nonavailability
of the necessary inputs. In the present study,
we have not used the yield gap concept; instead, we
estimated the damage due to prevailing constraints.
4.1.1 Abiotic and biotic constraints
To estimate the damage caused by prevailing abiotic
and biotic constraints, the RRA survey asked farmers to
estimate or assess three parameters. The first parameter
was the maize yield losses caused by specific abiotic
and biotic constraints that farmers were unable to
control due to poor access to technology infor mation or
lack of resources to apply available technologies. The
second parameter was the extent of maize area
affected by a specific constraint; the third parameter
was the probability of occurrence of the constraints,
which gave the frequency of occurrence of the
constraints and how much yields were adversely
affected by them. These three parameters have
significant impact on prioritizing production constraints.
Total expected damage due to a specific abiotic or
biotic constraint was computed as follows:
D i
= {(YL i
* A i
* p i
) * TMA} * P m
where D i
is total expected damage (in Indian rupees)
due to the i th constraint; YL i
is maize yield loss (kg/ha)
due to the i th constraint; A i
is the proportion of total
maize area adversely affected by the i th constraint; p i
is
the probability of occurrence of the i th constraint; TMA
is the total maize area (hectares) in the target domain;
and P m
is the price of maize (rupees/kg).
An attempt was also made to prioritize socioeconomic
constraints by computing the expected
losses incurred as a consequence of the constraint.
Farmers reported four major socio-economic
constraints: (1) low prices, (2) lack of markets, (3) nonavailability
of improved seed, and (4) lack of technical
know-how. The following steps were taken to assess
the losses due to the first three constraints.
4.1.2 Low prices
Due to a glut of food grains, particularly rice and
wheat, in most target locations, farmers complained
about receiving prices for maize that were lower than
the minimum support price announced by the
government. The income loss due to these lower
prices was computed as follows:
L p
=(MSP m
– PRM m
) * MP t
where L p
is the income loss (in rupees) due to
receiving lower prices of maize; MSP m
is the minimum
support price (in rupees/kg) announced by the
government; PRM m
is the price (rupees/kg) received
by farmers in the nearest market; and MP t
is the
quantity of maize (kg) marketed/sold in the t th target
domain.