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Impact of the adoption of vegetative soil conservation measures on farm profit, revenue and variable cost in Darjeeling district, India

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 August 2019

Chandan Singha Open the ORCID record for Chandan Singha [Opens in a new window]
Chandan Singha*
Affiliation:
Hindu College, University of Delhi, Delhi, India
*
*Corresponding author. E-mail: chandan@econdse.org
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Abstract

This study evaluates the effects of vegetative soil conservation practices (afforestation and/or bamboo planting) on farm profit and its components, revenue and variable cost. Since farmers self-select themselves as adopters of conservation measures, there could be a problem of selection bias in evaluating their soil conservation practices. We address the selection bias by using propensity score matching. We also check if there exists spatial spillover in adoption of vegetative conservation measures and how it affects matching. We use primary survey data from the Darjeeling district of the Eastern Himalayan region for the year 2013. Our results suggest strong spatial correlation. We find that the propensity score estimated from the spatial model provides better matches than the non-spatial model. While the results show that vegetative soil conservation can lead to significant gains in revenue, it also increases costs so that no significant gains in profit accrue to farmers.

Keywords

propensity score matchingsoil conservationspatial dependence

JEL classification

Q24: Land C11: Bayesian Analysis: General C21: Cross-Sectional Models • Spatial Models • Treatment Effect Models • Quantile Regressions
Type
Research Article
Information
Environment and Development Economics , Volume 24 , Issue 5 , October 2019 , pp. 529 - 553
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2019 

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