Methodology for Assessing Adoption, Efficiency and Impacts of Mechanized Raised Bed Technology

Abstract

Mechanized raised bed technology (MRBT) has been recognized as an important component of integrated water management to achieve higher productivity in intensive irrigated systems such as in the Nile delta. Effective management and policy for spreading the technology at scale toward achieving system-level outcome requires adequate understanding on drivers of farmers’ MRBT adoption, insightful assessment of the technology efficiency regarding system performance and impacts. Related research efforts on these issues are challenged by both the complex nature of the task, and the diversity of socio-ecological context that shapes farming systems’ performance. This paper concisely reviews and re-introduces a system-based option-by-context approach for guiding concrete analytical steps and operational methods for addressing the research issues in coping with the challenges of system complexity and contextual diversity. The paper elaborates methodologies, ranging from concepts to operational methods, that would needs for obtaining the following objectives: (1) Identify and characterize main livelihood types of smallholders in terms of their farms’ biophysical and socioeconomic characteristics, (2) identify determinants, both common and livelihood type-specific, of farmers’ adoptions of MRBT, (3) delineate the ceiling line of water use efficiency the MRBT can bring about (i.e. the efficiency frontier) and use it as a reference for assessing crop production efficiency of MRBT farms with respect to water and other resources uses, and evaluate impacts of MRBT on whole farm productivity and profit, household livelihoods, irrigated community-landscape (multi-scale impacts).