Scope of the study:

Direct seeded rice (DSR) is established by directly sowing rice seeds into the fields. It is considered to be a more sustainable approach to rice production, one of the most important crops for food security and rural livelihood in India, in comparison to conventional puddled transplanted rice (PTR). Considering the growing concerns around the unsustainable use of natural resources and water scarcity due to changes in climatic conditions, DSR is emerging to be a favourable alternative for promoting sustainable agriculture practices and reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from rice cultivation. Moreover, the labour requirement for PTR is higher as compared to DSR. Bearing in mind labour scarcity and rising wages in Indian agriculture, DSR is deemed to be a solution to sustainably meet rising demand for rice and thus ensure food security.

Despite such critical benefits, the adoption of DSR across Asia, a major producer and consumer of rice, has been rather slow. In India, governments as well as civil society organizations have made considerable efforts to boost adoption of DSR, but we are still far below the planned targets. There is limited evidence on issues surrounding DSR adoption among smallholder farmers. Furthermore, existing literature focuses more on male DSR adopters even though women farmers play a key role in rice transplanting and are likely to be highly impacted due to adoption of DSR. This underscores the need for generating more evidence on the constraints and opportunities for DSR adoption, especially among women and smallholder farmers.

In this context, Cereal Systems Initiative for South Asia (CSISA) aims to implement a study to understand the enabling factors and constraints that affect DSR adoption among farmers. Further, this study would also seek to assess the consequences of DSR adoption in terms of equity by analysing its role in expanding choices and available opportunities for different categories of farmers, with a focus on smallholder women farmers. While DSR is considered a labour-saving technology that contributes to reduced drudgery and increased time for other activities, there are concerns that due to limited decision-making ability, control over their income, intrahousehold dynamics as well as prevalent social norms, women often do not benefit from such time savings. In fact, such technologies can in turn result in more work or result in labor displacement, especially for women farmers. In this study, an effort would be made to understand the perspective of women farmers who have adopted DSR and identify the opportunities and constraints through their lens as far as adoption of DSR technology is concerned. Moreover, adoption of any technology can in turn have consequences on nutrition, childcare, empowerment, agency, resource allocation, and other aspects of individual and household welfare, which makes it critical to assess the trade-offs involved in DSR adoption.

The survey districts in Odisha include- Mayurbhanj, Ganjam, Kalahandi, and Puri.