Prioritizing Profitable Climate-Smart Farming for Smallholder Farmers in South Asia

Challenge

Smallholders need climate-smart practices that raise profits and resilience across the Ganges-Brahmaputra Basin.

Solution

Prioritize climate-smart agriculture options with farmers, then assess options’ profitability and sustainability to guide choices.

Overview

Smallholder farmers across the Ganges-Brahmaputra River Basin work on thin margins and face climate stress that undermines yields and income. With support from the Asia-Pacific Network for Global Change Research (APN), this project asked a concrete question: which climate-smart agriculture (CSA) practices improve profits when wider societal effects are taken into account?

Shobha Poudel (Science Hub Nepal, Nepal) led applied work in Bangladesh, India, and Nepal. The project worked with farmers and local experts to shortlist locally relevant options, surveyed 300 farm households, and completed country cost and benefit analyses for the shortlisted practices.

Study context and approach

In each study area, farmers’ and stakeholders’ workshops refined priorities and validated the shortlisted practices. The analyses used local cost and revenue data to calculate net farm profit for each practice, and then incorporated effects that extend beyond the farm, such as cleaner water, improved soils, or lower emissions.

This two-part lens gave authorities a way to compare private returns with public benefits across the three countries. A regional workshop consolidated the results, and methods and data were shared via an open‑access website.

Bangladesh: priorities and analysis

Work focused on Godagari Upazila, Rajshahi. The shortlist reflected practical choices farmers can act on, including short‑duration high‑yielding varieties, improved water management, drought‑ and submergence‑tolerant varieties, high‑value crops on higher land, organic amendments, appropriate fertilizer use, mulching, adjusted planting dates, crop rotation, and intercropping with short‑duration vegetables.

Stakeholders verified the adopted practices and identified positive external effects, noting effectiveness under seasonal variation, soil fertility, crop requirements, and financial benefits.

India: priorities and analysis

Activities centered on Samastipur, Bihar. Shortlisted options included zero tillage, direct seeded rice, raised bed planting, intercropping, sprinkle irrigation, kitchen gardening, residue management or mulching, and laser land levelling. A group of women from the Bihar Rural Livelihoods Promotion Society (JEEViKA), demonstrated kitchen gardening using natural farming inputs prepared from locally available materials.

Nepal: priorities and analysis

A stakeholder workshop in Kavre, Nepal, set local priorities for analysis. The project then calculated net farm profit for each shortlisted practice using local prices, yields, and costs, and incorporated relevant external effects to produce Nepal-specific results.

How choices were compared

Net farm profit was calculated from local costs and revenues for each practice in each country, and external effects that matter to society were incorporated where relevant. Considering both strands produced a set of practices that national and subnational agencies can evaluate and scale, rather than relying only on farm profit.

Policy and engagement

Findings were shared through stakeholder workshops in each study area and a regional workshop. Outputs documented in the final report include templates for expert consultation workshops, a methodology for evaluating externalities in cost–benefit analysis, identification of potential value chains, and an open‑access website for information sharing and data archiving.

Outcomes and results

• A total of 300 farm households were surveyed: 100 in Bangladesh, 100 in India, and 100 in Nepal.
• One farmers’ workshop and one stakeholders’ workshop were held in each country, and a closing workshop in Kathmandu synthesized results.
• A CSA prioritization framework and a cost–benefit approach that incorporates externalities were developed and documented.
• Among prioritized practices, the most profitable were: crop-specific lure in maize (Nepal), mixed cropping of potato (India), and improved manure in cabbage (Bangladesh).

Project details

Acknowledgements

This project was supported by the Asia-Pacific Network for Global Change Research (APN) under its Collaborative Regional Research Programme (CRRP). Acknowledgements also go to Agriculture and Forestry University (Nepal), Bangladesh Agricultural University (Bangladesh), Resilience Innovation Knowledge Academy (India), Keio University (Japan), and Kyoto University (Japan).