title: Trials and Tribulations: High-Yielding Varieties and Small Farmers in Bihar, circa 1970
creator: Bell, Clive
subject: ddc-330
subject: 330 Economics
description: This paper recounts an early attempt to promote the adoption of high-yielding varieties (HYVs) of rice and wheat by small farmers. The instrument was a package not only of inputs, extension advice and supervision, but also – addressing risk aversion – a guaranteed net revenue. The scheme was implemented by the newly-created Small Farmers’ Development Agency, a parastatal body. The paper examines how and why the scheme failed, and analyses the data yielded by the trials. The chief causes of its failure were a lack of incentives within the public sector and the Agency’s weakness within the larger administrative system. Despite all manner of difficulties, the participants in the trials obtained levels of valued added per acre thrice those of their contemporaries cultivating local varieties and crop yields from two-thirds to four-fifths of those achieved by  their grand children’s cohort circa 2020.
date: 2025
type: Working paper
type: info:eu-repo/semantics/workingPaper
type: NonPeerReviewed
format: application/pdf
identifier: https://archiv.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/volltextserver/35949/7/Bell_trials_dp761_2025.pdf
identifier: DOI:10.11588/heidok.00035949
identifier: urn:nbn:de:bsz:16-heidok-359495
identifier:   Bell, Clive  (2025) Trials and Tribulations: High-Yielding Varieties and Small Farmers in Bihar, circa 1970.  [Working paper]     
relation: https://archiv.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/volltextserver/35949/
rights: info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess
rights: http://archiv.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/volltextserver/help/license_urhg.html
language: eng