Rainy Season Sorghum Technology Adoption and Impact Study in Maharashtra. Research Report 70

This study on ‘Rainy season sorghum technology: Adoption and impact in Maharashtra’ was attempted to estimate the adoption of improved varieties and hybrids of rainy season sorghum in the three major regions of Maharashtra and its impact on the yields and incomes of the farmers and consumers in the state. The study was focused on the 13 major districts of Maharashtra where rainy season sorghum is grown and on 91 tehsils where the area under rainy season sorghum was at least 5000 ha per tehsil. These 91 tehsils together accounted for 77.2% of the total rainy season sorghum area in the state. A sample of 20 tehsils was drawn by giving weights to sorghum area and 360 farmers were chosen randomly as sample from 60 villages in 20 tehsils. One-half of the sample was drawn from Marathwada region, while Western Maharashtra and Vidarbha regions accounted for one-fourth of the sample each. The field survey was carried out during 2013 and the household data was pertained to the cropping year, 2012-13. The analysis of data revealed that rainy season sorghum was quite important in the cropping patterns of the sample farmers. The farmers were largely dependent on farming for their incomes; were in their middle age; had long experience with the rainy season sorghum; and had families with adverse sex ratios. Their size of holding averaged 3.16 ha, with irrigation coverage for about one-fourth of the holding. The survey showed that improved varieties spread is insignificant, while hybrids are popular with farmers. Hence, the study concentrated on hybrids adoption and their impact in the state. The first adoption patterns revealed that the hybrids took about 10 to 15 years to reach peaks of first adoption after their formal release. The cumulative adoption data endorsed the popularity of CSH 9, despite the arrival of private sector hybrids like Mahyco 51, MLSH 296, JKSH 22 and ProAgro 8340. In spite of the availability of information from research and extension departments, farmers predominantly accessed both information as well as seeds from local seed shops before adopting new hybrids. In the latest years, MLSH 296 (Dev Gen), CSH 9, ProAgro 8340, Mahyco 51 and JKSH 22 were the most popular hybrids in Maharashtra. Despite a depressing policy scenario and discrimination against sorghum, the public and private research investments in sorghum research were productive in increasing the yields of sorghum by 1% per year. Rainy season sorghum area in Maharashtra was nearly saturated with hybrids by the end of the 20th century itself. In this study, the performance of the hybrids released before the year 2000, and those released after were compared to judge whether the new hybrids had shifted the production function to the right and resulted in reduction in the unit cost of production. It was found that the weighted average unit cost of the hybrids released before 2000, was higher by USD 27 per ton when compared with the same of hybrids released after 2000. By reducing the unit cost of production by about 15%, the new set of hybrids resulted in substantial welfare benefits to the society. Using the ex-post framework developed by Bantilan et al. (2013), the welfare benefits of new hybrids in Maharashtra were estimated as USD 150 million during 30 years period ie, between 1993 and 2022. Thus, the new production technology of rainy season sorghum has benefitted the farmers as well as the consumers and also seed companies, seed dealers and other actors in the input delivery and output marketing channels.