Sustainable intensification of agriculture (SIA) is promoted by a number of Research-for-Development (R4D) programs and institutions to improve yields, rural incomes, and food security while decreasing or at least maintaining the current expansion of agricultural land and other adverse environmental impacts. One of the major SIA programs was the Cereal System Initiative for South Asia (CSISA), which was established in 2009 with the goal of benefiting more than 8 million farmers by the end of 2020 (https://csisa.org/). After the initial phase, the project shifted its regional focus, toward the eastern Indo-Gangetic Plains. The region is characterized by small farm sizes, low incomes, and comparatively low levels of agricultural mechanization, irrigation, and productivity. The project partners with the national universities, State Departments of Agriculture, national-level initiatives, livelihoods programs, state agricultural universities, NGOs, and private sector entities such as agricultural machinery manufacturers, dealers, and local service providers. The current census among rural households was conducted in 2020, as part of CSISA Nepal.
The main research question while starting this farmer census was to estimate the farm-level reach and adoption of CSISA-interventions in Nepal. We aimed to show how inclusive these technologies are, and whether there is a need for social targeting. The study was conducted in 9 districts of Nepal Terai region - Banke, Bardiya, Dang, Kailali, Kanchanpur, Kapilvastu, Nawalpur, Parasi, and Rupendehi. These are the districts where CSISA project has been active in the last decade, and they are major cereal producers in the country. Fifty villages were selected in total – 40 were selected randomly, and 10 from the list of villages where CSISA has been active. In all the 50 villages, village census was conducted in which farmer information (name, phone number, etc.) alongside technology adoption details were collected. During the two-month period (2020), about 38,000 rural households were covered as part of the census.
