Key points are not available for this paper at this time.
Sustainable rice production is crucial for ensuring food security in Bangladesh, because traditional practices damage biodiversity, and result in yield variability and economic loss. This paper examines how eco-friendly farming practices affects technical efficiency and production risk in Aman rice production. The analysis concentrates on four eco-friendly practices used in the study area, which are crop diversification, organic farming, straw returning and land resting. Technical efficiency represents how much rice farmers are close to maximum optimal output, and production risk implies the variability in rice output due to uncertain climatic and agro-ecological conditions. Primary data were collected through face-to-face interviews from 534 Aman rice farmers of Moulvibazar district. The stochastic frontier analysis (SFA) was used to evaluate the technical efficiency and production risk in rice production. The findings show that the mean technical efficiency of Aman rice production was 77%. Land, labor, and fertilizer significantly increased rice output. Organic farming enhanced inefficiency but reduced risk, whereas diversification stabilized output and increased efficiency. Straw returning also enhanced efficiency, but it had no significant impact on risk. Conversely, land resting had no effect on efficiency, although it positively affected production risk. Eco-friendly farming practices can make rice production sustainable, but their effect on efficiency and risk differs by practice. Future research could investigate the nexus between multiple eco-friendly practices, efficiency and risk. Therefore, policies in the form of subsidies, credit facilities, and advisory services must be tailored to support eco-friendly practices in such a way that it balances efficiency gain and risk reduction. • Organic farming enhanced inefficiency but reduced risk. • Crop diversification stabilized output and increased efficiency. • Straw returning also enhanced efficiency, had no impact on risk. • Land resting had no effect on efficiency, although it reduced risk. • Input subsidies reduced inefficiency.
Koiry et al. (Sat,) studied this question.