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This study was conducted to estimate the factors influencing the viability of small and marginal farms in Rayalaseema region of Andhra Pradesh. Multistage sampling technique was employed for selection of samples at different levels (districts, mandals and villages) in the present study. A sample of 120 farmers was selected from two districts, six mandals and six villages. The farmers were categorized according to their land holding size into marginal (

PURPOSE: Agricultural support programmes most commonly aim at attaining higher production of raw food materials or supporting processes resulting in agricultural yield. One of the most important challenges is to increase labour productivity, thanks to which working in the agricultural sector may be attractive in comparison with working in the nonagricultural sector. In literature, in the scope of agricultural economy, there is a lack of consistent results concerning the relation between the level of subsidies for operational activity and labour productivity in agriculture. The question arises whether or not subsidies for agriculture help achieve the intended results in the form of an increase in labour productivity. This reasoning gave rise to this study, which aimed at indicating the directions and strength of association between subsidies for operational activity on farms expressed per one employed and the attained labour productivity., DESIGN/METHODOLOGY/APPROACH: The study was carried out for EU countries divided into quartile groups defined according to labour productivity. Data from the Farm Accountancy Data Network for the period 2013-2018 were applied, and for analysis the panel regression method (with random effects) was used., FINDINGS: It was found that together with an increase in labour productivity, the direction and the strength of impact of direct subsidies also altered. On farms of countries with a lower labour productivity, no significant relation was found. However, for the quantile groups Q2 and Q3, an increase in the level of labour productivity resulted in a positive, yet decreasing impact of subsidies. On farms of countries with the lowest labour productivity, a negative impact of subsidies was observed., PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS: The conducted analysis gives reason to state that farms that have attained a high level of development, subsidies do not lead to a further growth of productivity, but only support the maintenance of the same level of farm income., ORIGINALITY/VALUE: The assessment of whether and under what conditions the subsidies bring the intended effects allows for a change in the directions of support in order to obtain better effects from spending public funds. The research was conducted for a long period of time for a group of all EU countries., peer-reviewed

This article investigates the impact of improved agricultural technology use on farm household income in eastern Ethiopia. Primary data for the study were obtained from a random sample of 248 rural households, 119 of which are improved technology users and the rest are non-users. The research employed the propensity score matching procedure to establish the causal relationship between adoption of improved crop and livestock technologies and changes in farm income. Results from the econometric analysis show that households using improved agricultural technologies had, on average, 23,031.28 Birr 1 higher annual farm income compared to those households not using such technologies. Our findings highlight the importance of promoting multiple and complementary agricultural technologies among rural smallholders. Therefore, we suggest that rural technology generation, dissemination and adoption interventions be strengthened. Moreover, the linkage among research, extension, universities and farmers needs to be enhanced through facilitating multistakeholder innovation platforms.

Brewin (2020) was optimistic about the fate of the Canadian grains and oilseeds sector in 2020 as the COVID‐19 pandemic descended on the world. The sector did generate a large crop and, towards the end of 2020, saw a lift in prices. This contributed to record farm income in Canada in 2020. The pace of grain and oilseed exports in Canada and ethanol demand in the east were affected by COVID‐19, but the forecast of a “near normal” 2020 was relatively accurate. Production and prices stayed on track, largely because the world did not impose significant new barriers to trade in cereals and oilseeds and because these sectors have distanced labor in virtually every step of the supply chain which protected these markets from this pandemic. The dominant price factor for the sector remains global demand that had been growing before 2020 relative to the pace of production and may have been stimulated by deficit budgets around the world. Compared to the tight global stocks, COVID‐19 had a minor impact on grain prices which led to steady production worldwide and in Canada. We are still waiting for more evidence to assess the role of federal coordination in the success of the grains and oilseed sector in 2020, but Canada's past participation in trade and safety protocols based on science allowed the grains and oilseed sector in Canada to earn a very good income in 2020.

Research background: Strengthening agriculture and food systems have a critical role to play in achieving the sustainable development goals of eliminating hunger and poverty; and increasing resilience to climatic shocks. Crop diversification has been recognized as a way of increasing resilience and reducing agricultural risk. Closing the gender gap could boost agricultural productivity and enhance welfare. Effects of crop diversification in enhancing dietary diversity amidst gender gap in agricultural productivity among smallholders have not been well established in Nigeria. Purpose of the article: The study was conducted to provide empirical evidence on crop diversification, productivity and dietary diversity of male and female-headed farming households in Nigeria. This has policy implications on development of inclusive and efficient agrifood system towards achieving the SDGs of eradicating poverty, hunger and gender equality. Methods: Secondary data from the 2015/16 Living Standard Measurement Survey-Integrated Survey on Agriculture (LSMS-ISA) was used for this study. Tobit regression model was employed to investigate the factors influencing crop diversification and dietary diversity while Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition method was used to decompose gender differentials in agricultural productivity. Findings and value added: Crop diversification index of male farmers is 0.10 (P

Reducing the usage of fossil fuels is a central issue in ongoing policy debates. This in particular holds for Dutch horticulture, given its energy-intensive production. We analyse differences in energy usage and price responsiveness of horticultural firms by estimating energy demand functions using a Bayesian random coefficient model. Beyond, the effects of a proposed energy tax are assessed. Allowing for firm-specific energy price coefficients gives a better model fit compared to conventional models with fixed slope parameters. This confirms that firms respond differently to energy prices, which is taken into account in simulating the effects of more restrictive energy policies. The results show that larger-sized firms use less gas per square meter yet also point at a considerable spread in additional energy expenses between firms.

This paper deals with the economic performance and technical efficiency of dairy production in the European Union and its persistent and transient parts. Attention is focused on the differences in these efficiency indicators according to the economic size. The analysis covers two types of farming: specialized milk and mixed crops and livestock using FADN data in the period from 2004 to 2017. The analysis is based on the four-component model that represents the most advanced approach to technical efficiency analysis at present and the one-step estimation procedure. To the best of knowledge, this is the first application of the four-component model based on the one-step estimation procedure on these types of farming in the EU. The results show the highly efficient production in both types of farming. In both types of farming, the transient technical efficiency is higher than the persistent one. The overall and transient technical efficiency do not differ statistically among groups according to economic size. The lowest persistent technical efficiency was found in the group of highest economic size. This group has the highest share of current subsidies in gross farm income, produces the least gross farm income in total output, achieves also the lowest cost-effectiveness and the lowest value of performance indicators compared to the others., Tento článek se zabývá ekonomickou výkonností a technickou efektivností mléčné produkce v EU a její přechodnou a setrvalou složkou. Pozornost je zaměřena na rozdíly v těchto ukazatelích efektivnosti s ohledem na ekonomickou velikost. Analýza pokrývá specializovanou mléčnou produkci a smíšenou produkci s využitím dat z databáze FADN za období 2004 – 2017. Analýza je postavena na čtyř komponentním modelu, který představuje v současnosti nejpokročilejší přístup k analýze technické efektivnosti, a na jednostupňové metodě odhadu. Zároveň se jedná o první aplikaci této specifikace stochastické hraniční analýzy pro tyto specializace v EU. Výsledky ukazují vysokou efektivnost produkce v obou typech zemědělské výroby. V obou výrobních zaměřeních je rovněž přechodná technická efektivnost vyšší než setrvalá. Celková a přechodná technická efektivnost se statisticky neliší mezi skupinami dle ekonomické velikosti. Nejnižší setrvalá technická efektivnost byla zjištěna ve skupině s nejvyšší ekonomickou velikostí. Tato skupina má nejvyšší podíl běžných dotací na hrubé přidané hodnotě, produkuje nejméně hrubé přidané hodnoty v celkové produkci, dosahuje nejnižší nákladové efektivnosti a zároveň nejnižších hodnot ukazatelů výkonnosti ve srovnání s jinými skupinami.

The paper compares the income conditions of farm and nonfarm households in the whole EU and within three geographical groups of countries for the period 2008–2016. Overcoming the simple comparison of raw means of the groups, we estimate the farm/nonfarm income differentials by using Regression Adjusted and Covariate Matching techniques, which allow to control for observable characteristics among groups. Three innovative features of our analysis are that we account for the whole income of farm households (i.e. not only farm income), for the presence of in‐kind incomes from self‐consumption of produced goods and imputed rents from properties, and for the complex survey design. We find that an income differential still exists but with relevant differences across countries and along the period. Most of it is due to differences in the households’ characteristics. Hence, comparing raw means of the two groups can be misleading. Nonmonetary sources of income play a not negligible role, improving the relative position of farm households. The role of agricultural and rural policy is discussed in the light of results.

Many rural households in low and middle income countries continue to rely on small-scale agriculture as their primary source of income. In the absence of irrigation, income arrives only once or twice per year, and has to cover consumption and input needs until the subsequent harvest. We develop a model to show that seasonal liquidity constraints not only undermine households’ ability to smooth consumption over the cropping cycle, but also affect labor markets if liquidity-constrained farmers sell family labor off-farm to meet short-run cash needs. To identify the impact of seasonal constraints on labor allocation and agricultural production, we conducted a two-year randomized controlled trial with small-scale farmers in rural Zambia. Our results indicate that lowering the cost of accessing liquidity at the time of the year when farmers are most constrained (the lean season) reduces aggregate labor supply, drives up wages and leads to a reallocation of labor from less to more liquidity-constrained farms. This reallocation reduces consumption and income inequality among treated farmers and increases average agricultural output.

Many farmers face borrowing limits that depend on their household income and net worth. Given such credit constraints, an increase in off-farm income should allow farmers to borrow more, thus influencing production decisions and productivity. To test this hypothesis, the education level of the farm operator’s spouse is used to identify exogenous variation in off-farm income. Findings indicate that higher off-farm income leads to more borrowing, capital expenditures, capital input intensity, farm labor use, output, farm income, and productivity. Results suggest that Federal programs that promote access to credit for limited-resource farmers may increase farm investment and productivity.

In response to the public's concerns about animal welfare in swine husbandry, the pig (Sus scrofa domesticus) sector introduced improved measures to focus on single rather than multiple dimensions of animal welfare concerns without accounting for their impact on public attitudes. These measures failed to improve attitudes to pig husbandry. The present study uses a more comprehensive approach by evaluating animal welfare measures in terms of their effect on animal welfare, farm income and public attitudes. Four measures were defined for each of the following societal aspects of sow husbandry: piglet mortality; tail biting and the indoor housing of gestating sows. A simulation model was developed to estimate the effects of the measures and Data Envelopment Analysis used to compare measures in terms of their effects on animal welfare, farm income and public attitudes. Only piglet mortality measures were found to have a positive effect on farm income but they showed a relatively low effect on animal welfare and public attitudes. The most efficient measure was that which included straw provision, daylight and increased group sizes for gestating sows. The level of improvement of a measure on animal welfare did not necessarily equate to the same level of improvement in public attitudes or decrease in farm income.

This study examines the impact of cash crop cultivation on household income and migration decisions, using survey data collected from low-income regions in China. Given farmers decide themselves whether to cultivate cash crops, an endogenous treatment regression model that accounts for potential selection bias issue is used to analyze the data. The empirical results show that cash crop cultivation exerts a positive and statistically significant impact on household income, but it does not affect household migration decisions significantly. The disaggregated analyses reveal that cash crop cultivation significantly increases farm income but decreases off-farm income.

Agricultural policy in Egypt has tended in recent years to make some structural changes in order to maximize the economic return in light of the technical possibilities and local and international economics of agricultural production determinants. some Food crops, industrial and export important in Egypt, and is a source of agricultural income, In order to determine the features of agricultural price policy for most important vegetable crops in Egypt, it was possible to calculate the matrix of agricultural policy analysis, to clarify the extent of deviation of lacal market prices for tomato and potato crops and world prices to identify the levels of distortions in the commodity markets and the degree of nonemployment of resources, as well as the calculation of the nominal and effective protection factors. To identify the price policies adopted by the state, whether the policy of subsidies or taxation of producers of agricultural crops, as well as the calculation of the cost factor of the local resource to determine the comparative advantage. We conclude from the above and based on the results of the Matrix of Agricultural Policy Analysis for Tomato and Potato Crops in Egypt during the average period (2011-2017) that the country’s productive policy during the study period had any affection crop producers represented in tax rate 14.742, 12.489 pounds. Which do not compare with the support provided to them, which averaged about 93,189 pounds per acre, respectively. Tomato and potato crops have an advantage that can be used to increase their exports in the global markets, which require integration between the state and the private sector to activate the ability of crop producers to export. And Egyptian potatoes, and on this the study recommends the necessity of improving the prices of production requirements for the crops under study in a manner commensurate with the continuous increase in production costs in order to work on increasing farm income and addressing negatives arising from C Tax of SAT in high production costs and made available at affordable prices.

The study was undertaken in North of Bengaluru to analyse the investment pattern, crop diversification and farm household’s income across rural-urban interface. The required data was collected from randomly selected 80 farmers each under rural, transition and urban gradients. Tobit regression was used to determine the drivers of investment and Herfindahl index was used to capture the extent of crop diversification across rural urban interface. The per farm investment was relatively higher on water resource and irrigation structure across all the gradients. Around 56, 51 and 45 percent of farmers have invested on water resource and irrigation structures in transition, urban and rural gradient, respectively followed by animal husbandry (40% in rural gradient) and plantation and horticulture (25% in transition and urban gradients). There has been an investment led crop diversification from food crops to vegetables, flower and fruit crops in rural gradient between 2014 and 2019. Whereas, in transition and urban gradients, diversification was from food and vegetable crops to high value fruit crops during the same period. During 2019, the extent of diversification was more in transition (0.21) and rural (0.25) gradients compared to urban (0.29) gradient. Age of head of family, farm income and borrowed capital were the chief drivers which significantly affected the investment in agriculture. The study concludes that, investment led high value crops cultivation and crop diversification played significant role in augmenting the farm income leading to improvement in farmer’s welfare assuring food and livelihood security.

PurposeThe objective of this study is to estimate the impacts of access to irrigation on farm income, household income and income diversification.Design/methodology/approachThis study employs an endogenous switching regression (ESR) model to address the selection bias arising from both observed and unobserved factors and analyze cross-sectional data collected from Fujian, Henan and Sichuan provinces in China. The authors use the Simpson index to measure household income diversification. The propensity score matching (PSM) model and control function approach are also used for comparison purpose.FindingsAfter controlling for the selection bias, the authors find that access to irrigation has a positive and statistically significant impact on rural incomes and diversification. The treatment effects of access to irrigation are to increase farm income, household income and income diversification by around 14, 10 and 107%, respectively. The positive effects of access to irrigation are confirmed by the estimates of the PSM model and control function approach. Further analysis reveals that the irrigation effects on rural incomes and diversification are heterogeneous between small-scale and large-scale farmers and between male-headed and female-headed households.Practical implicationsThe authors’ findings suggest that the government should continue to improve irrigation infrastructure construction in rural China to promote smallholder farmers' water access and at the same time facilitate farmers' access to better agronomic and irrigation information. There exist gender and farm size related income and diversification effects of access to irrigation, and the irrigation access is associated with farm location. Thus, when developing regional irrigation programs consideration needs to be taken of whether the rural farming systems are dominated by male/female household heads and land fragmentation/consolidation issues.Originality/valueAlthough a large body of literature has investigated the effects of irrigation development in rural areas, little is known about the impact of access to irrigation on income diversification. The selection bias associated with unobserved heterogeneities is usually neglected in previous studies. This study provides the first attempt by examining the impacts of access to irrigation on rural incomes and diversification, using the ESR model to address both observed and unobserved selection bias.

Sektor pertanian di Kabupaten Sumedang merupakan sumber utama pertumbuhan ekonomi wilayah, sehingga menjadikan pengembangan sektor pertanian prioritas utama pembangunan wilayah. Dalam konteks otonomi daerah, pembangunan wilayah diharuskan memprioritaskan sektor unggulan dengan memperhatikan keunggulan komparatif dan kompetitif daerah. Penelitian ini bertujuan menganalisis komoditas unggulan di masing-masing kecamatan di Kabupaten Sumedang dan menganalisis nilai efek multipler komoditas unggulan prioritas. Metode analisis data yang digunakan pada penelitian ini antara lain (1) Location Quotient (LQ), (2) Differential Shift (DS), dan (3) analisis efek multiplier. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan komoditas unggulan utama Kabupaten Sumedang adalah padi sawah yang menjadi unggulan pada 9 kecamatan, diikuti oleh komoditas ubi kayu yang menjadi unggulan pada 7 kecamatan. Efek multiplier dengan pola tanam padi palawija padi terbesar terdapat pada kombinasi padi ubi jalar padi yaitu sebesar 3,2.

Olale et al. (Environ Resour Econ 605–623, 2019) argue that the introduction of a carbon tax substantially reduced farm income in the Canadian province of British Columbia. In this comment, we raise serious concerns with their data, empirical methods, and theory. Most importantly, Olale et al. (2019) assume that the difference in farm income between British Columbia and the rest of Canada would have remained constant over time without the introduction of the carbon tax. We provide evidence that this is unlikely to be true and show that their results disappear when we account for differential trends. We conclude that the estimates in Olale et al. (2019) do not represent the effect of a carbon tax on farm income.

As a multi‐objective policy, the EU Common Agricultural Policy continues to secure significant income support for farmers as one of the nine specific objectives. We estimate the income transfer efficiency of a broad set of pivotal policy measures, focusing on the effects of farm structure on income transfer efficiency. We use dynamic modelling, based on a micro‐data panel of Italian farms for the period 2008–2014, allowing for endogeneity, simultaneity bias, and omitted variables. In line with previous studies and economic expectations, we find that decoupled direct payments provide the highest contribution to agricultural incomes, followed by agri‐environmental payments and on‐farm investment subsidies. Coupled payments have no significant impacts on farmers’ income. Generally, for all analysed Common Agricultural Policy measures, large farms benefit from greater transfer efficiency levels compared with medium and small farms. These differences among instruments and across farms suggest that policy‐participation costs may play a pivotal role, together with the economic structure of farms, in determining the income transfer efficiency of CAP policies.

This paper estimates the global value of using genetically modified (GM) crop technology in agriculture at the farm level. It follows and updates earlier studies which examined impacts on yields, key variable costs of production, direct farm (gross) income, and impacts on the production base of the four main crops of soybeans, corn, cotton, and canola. This updated analysis shows that there continues to be very significant net economic benefits at the farm level amounting to $18.9 billion in 2018 and $225.1 billion for the period 1996–2018 (in nominal terms). These gains have been divided 52% to farmers in developing countries and 48% to farmers in developed countries. Seventy-two per cent of the gains have derived from yield and production gains with the remaining 28% coming from cost savings. The technology has also made important contributions to increasing global production levels of the four main crops, having, for example, added 278 million tonnes and 498 million tonnes, respectively, to the global production of soybeans and maize since the introduction of the technology in the mid-1990 s. In terms of investment, for each extra dollar invested in GM crop seeds (relative to the cost of conventional seed), farmers gained an average US $3.75 in extra income. In developing countries, the average return was $4.41 for each extra dollar invested in GM crop seed and in developed countries the average return was $3.24.

In the case of all farms, the issue of profitability achieved is crucial. The effectiveness of production factors involved, including labour, shapes income in agriculture to a large extent. Thus, the increase in the productivity of the labour factor determines the increase in the labour profitability. On the grounds of classical microeconomic relationships, it can be pointed out that the increase in farm income, which is the remuneration of the labour factor, can take place, ceteris paribus, with the increase in production. Assuming the permanence of labour factor inputs in the long term, the source of production growth should, in turn, be the increase in the labour productivity. The objective of the paper is to identify differences in the impact of labour productivity on farm income, with the dominance of family labour force and on farms with a dominance of paid labour force in Poland. The results presented may serve as a basis for concluding on the income situation of farms depending on the type of labour factor involved. The study will use the FADN data from 2009-2015 for Polish farms. The impact of labour productivity on farm income will be analysed using the propensity score matching method

Crop insurance may affect harvested acreage and yield by influencing producers’ behavior such as land allocation and input use. Although specialty crops are a major source of farm income, especially on the U.S. west coast, they have not received as much attention as field crops in previous empirical studies. This paper assesses the effect of moral hazard and adverse selection associated with the federal crop insurance program (FCIP) on the acreage and yield of major specialty crops in California. An econometric method that expands the switching regression model is developed to assess the effect. Results suggest that federal crop insurance can change specialty crop growers’ production responses to climate and soil conditions. The moral hazard effect tends to increase the acreage and yield of the specialty crops, whereas the adverse selection effect tends to have the opposite effect. The overall effect of the FCIP on acreage and yield of specialty crops is found to be moderate.

This study assessed apiculture enterprise to determine the output elasticity of production, returns to scale, technical efficiency and profitability in Adamawa State, Nigeria. A total of four agricultural zones out of six, and 108 apiarists were selected through purposive and simple random methods, respectively. Descriptive statistics, stochastic frontier production function and budgetary technique were used in the analyses of data. Findings revealed that all (100%) the respondents were males within the age range of 21-30 years (44.44%). The majority of apiarists (87.0%) were married with household size of 1-10 persons (77.78%) and 50.0% of them had secondary school education. A larger proportion (37.0%) had between 6 and 10 years of beekeeping experience with 41.67% earning monthly income of N11000 (USD30.8) – N20000 (USD56.0) from other sources. Further, the findings revealed that labor and number of hives had reassuring influence on the industry, while age, education and experience could be used to reduce inefficiency in the industry to improve efficiency status. The apiarists also had mean technical efficiency of 89.9%, while the inefficiency estimate was only 10.1%. In terms of profitability, beekeeping in the study area was found to have had a high gross margin of N16800.00 (USD47.0) and net farm income of N15225.97 (USD42.6) for every beehive in a cropping season. The major constraints to beekeeping reported in the area included beehive crops theft, high propensity of bees’ stings, inadequacy of finance, rampant bush burning and deforestation, among others. It was concluded that beekeeping in the study area was found to be profitable and technically efficient. Improving beekeeping business in the area, among other things, would require its modernization and involvement of female participants, provision of soft credit facilities and enactment of stringent forestry laws to check unwholesome forestry practices.

Does farmland zoning affect farm income, and why? This study addresses these questions using a case study in Taiwan. We use a unique farmland-level dataset and apply the regression discontinuity design to quantify the effects of zoning on farm income. We find that the zoning program decreases farm income. The programme effects are heterogeneous, as they are more pronounced for farms in the higher percentiles of the farm income distribution. Moreover, a larger effect is found for elderly farm operators. Concerning the mechanism, we argue that the zoning program generated an optional benefit or wealth effect for eligible farms. This wealth effect then reallocates family labour to off-farm jobs. Consequently, the zoning program reduces income from farming.

Worsening environmental conditions threaten to undermine progress in reducing rural poverty. Little is known, however, about the prospects for farmer adaptations to mitigate this threat, in particular through opportunities for income diversification presented by recent non-agricultural growth. We study the effects of increasing water scarcity in India using quasi-random, geologically determined differences in access to groundwater. The drying up of wells results in a precipitous and persistent decline in farm income and wealth, with little evidence of agricultural adaptation. However, labor reallocation to off-farm employment appears successful in maintaining overall income, particularly in locations with a more developed manufacturing sector. (JEL O13, O18, Q12, Q15, Q18, Q25, Q28)

Climate neutrality achievement in the European Union assumes the necessity of efforts and transformations in most economic sectors of its member-states. The farm sector in Poland, being the second largest contributor to the country’s greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and in the top fifth of farm sectors in the EU-27 countries, needs to undergo structural and technological transformations to contribute to the climate action goals. The article assesses the potential impacts of Poland’s climate neutrality achievement path on the domestic farm sector in terms of its structure, output, income, and prices of agricultural products. The approach is based on complex economic modelling combining computable general equilibrium (CGE) and optimisation modelling, with the farm sector model consisting of farm, structural, and market modules. While the modelling results cover three GHG emission-reduction scenarios up to 2050, to understand the transformation impact within varying policy approaches, the study for each scenario of farm sector development also outlines three policy options: carbon pricing, forced emission limit, and carbon subsidies. Results in all scenarios and policy options indicate a strong foreseeable impact on agricultural output and prices (mainly livestock production), shifts in the production structure toward crops, as well as changes in farm income along the analysed timeframe.

Springs are drying and rainfall patterns are changing in the Himalayas, resulting in water scarcity for agriculture. We examine the adoption of rainwater harvesting, a technology that has been recently re-designed and re-introduced to farmers in Nepal, as a climate change adaptation strategy in mountain farming. Using farm household surveys, we examine the impact of the adoption of rainwater harvesting on farm income and profitability. The adoption of the technology is mostly driven by external support such as farmers training that more than tripled household agricultural and livestock income. With incremental annual benefits of US$700 on average per adopter, this technology is economically viable from a household perspective. Adopters benefit from an increased supply of irrigation water during the dry season, which allows them to diversify their crops from subsistence cereal production to commercial high-value vegetables. Our analysis suggests that if 10% of households in an average rainfed district receive farming-related training, the net benefits in the district would be approximately US$1.3 million per year from the adoption of rain water harvesting technology. Given climatic and weather-related uncertainties faced by rainfed agriculture in the hills of Nepal, this technology is potentially a very useful climate change adaptation strategy for community resilience in the hills of Nepal.