Using socio-economic life cycle analysis to support smallholder communities in rural Andhra Pradesh, India

Rice, a staple food for more than half of the world population, is grown by transplanting rice seedlings into puddled soil. This cultivation practice is very labor- and water-intensive and is thus is becoming less sustainable... [ view full abstract ]

Rice, a staple food for more than half of the world population, is grown by transplanting rice seedlings into puddled soil. This cultivation practice is very labor- and water-intensive and is thus is becoming less sustainable as these resources are becoming increasingly scarce. Consequently, farmers in Andhra Pradesh, India, are being forced to shift from Transplanting (TPR) of rice to the cultivation practice of Direct-Seeding of Rice (DSR). We applied a holistic socio-economic Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) approach to assess both the environmental as well as socio-economic implications of this shift in cultivation practice and used scenario analysis to identify options to render rice production more sustainable and enable the sustainable development of the rural communities in Andhra Pradesh.  

Primary data were collected by surveying 100 smallholder farmers each doing either TPR or DSR in the state of Andhra Pradesh. The socio-economic LCA methodology AgBalance^TM (Frank et al. 2012) was applied. A stakeholder panel was established with representatives from Indian and international governmental institutions and NGOs to act as an advisory board. Using a scenario analysis, strategies towards a more sustainable rice production and a sustainable development of the rural communities were developed. To complement this work and to also capture sustainability aspects that are relevant for different stages of the rice value chain, a so-called ‘Hot Spot Mapping’ was conducted. In this approach, major players and influencers at each step of the value chain were interviewed about their perceptions as far as sustainability in the chain is concerned. The resulting aspects (commercial, environmental, socio-economic) were mapped to the different stages of the chain and potential strategies to improve those aspects were discussed. All taken together, the study shows that the DSR practice delivers both socio-economic as well as environmental benefits compared to the TPR practice. Notwithstanding, scenario analysis showed there is still significant potential for further improving the current DSR practice.

To support farmers in the implementation of these improvement strategies and thus to facilitate the consultancy services of the Indian Institute of Rice Research to the famers’ communities, a web-based graphical interface of the results of this study for smartphone or tablet was developed. A subset of indicators, which have proved i.) to be ‘hot spot’ topics and ii.) are responsive to the management scheme of the farmers were selected to create the web-based simulator tool that conducts flexible scenario analysis on the basis of the original AgBalance^TM S-LCA study. Results are shown as relative performance in comparison to the benchmark, i.e. typical rice growers in Andhra Pradesh. The web-based application has been rolled out to help rice farmers in their villages optimize their production towards higher yield, profitability and sustainability. Test cases using this web-based interface will be discussed in more detail in this presentation.