Sunil , you have raised a very pertinent issue, but I don't think , a smallholder farmer whose agriculture income is primary or secondary , there will any conspicuous change in strategy with regard to  intervention of technology . Unfortunately , most of the technologies address the issues of bigger land holdings , I agree with  that much .

Dear Sunil,

It has been observed that when agriculture is the.first source of income (and.also when land is not owned, but rented) farmers usually increase the intensification level, thus their productivity and most of the times also their efficiency.

However, these changes have commonly lead to reduced sustainability, and not always an increase in profitability have been found (among other reasons, because it depends on the environmental sustainability of their local agro-ecosystem -soil quality, etc.-).

Kind regards,

Alfredo J. Escribano.

Dear Sunil,

It has been observed that when agriculture is the first source of income (and.also when land is not owned, but rented) farmers usually increase the intensification level, and thus their productivity and most of the times also their efficiency.

However, these changes have commonly lead to reduced sustainability, and not always an increase in profitability have been found (among other reasons, because it depends on the environmental sustainability of their local agro-ecosystem -soil quality, etc.-).

Kind regards,

Alfredo J. Escribano.

I am thinking of a dairy centered farming system for the 92% of smallholders owning below 2 hectares to overcome this situation

Yes, there is not bigger difference in strategy, as Dr. Anoop Kumar explained but when agriculture is the  primary source of income, farmers go for shortcuts to increase productivity and income and do not bother much about sustainability. I agree to Escribano reply in this regard. Dairy centered farming is good option, as suggested by Sunil because it can help a lot to increase income and maintain land productivity if whole of OM is returned into soil..

Thanks Dr Nazir . We are listening  your feedbacks after along time . Hope , we continue interacting . The bigger  question is , do we need to tailor/modify any  technology as per size of land holding ?. Off course , there is no doubt , the rate of  technology adoption is hugely dependently on the size of land holding , usually linearly related .

Thank you Dr. Anoop Kumar and other colleagues for missing my absence from Researchgate. Actually, I was in settling stage in Pakistan after leaving Qatar completing my assignments there. Now I have settled in Lahore and will be arranging internet etc in a few days. Then, I will be a regular participant, as usual.

Yes, you are right, all technologies are devised with a relevance to scale. The techniques for small farming are to be investigated in localities where small farmers dominate by area as well as in number. 

Agricultural productivity is measured as the ratio of agricultural outputs to agricultural inputs.[1] While individual products are usually measured by weight, their varying densities make measuring overall agricultural output difficult. Therefore, output is usually measured as the market value of final output, which excludes intermediate products such as corn feed used in the meat industry. This output value may be compared to many different types of inputs such as labour and land (yield). These are called partial measures of productivity. Agricultural productivity may also be measured by what is termed total factor productivity (TFP). This method of calculating agricultural productivity compares an index of agricultural inputs to an index of outputs. This measure of agricultural productivity was established to remedy the shortcomings of the partial measures of productivity; notably that it is often hard to identify the factors cause them to change. Changes in TFP are usually attributed to technological improve

Thanks for all the answers

I can tell you for a dairy farms an alternative income of agriculture decrease the efficiency value estimated by DEA. The values of  dairy farms efficiency do not difer a lot if the income is exclusively from agriculture (0,689= CRSTE, 0,818= VRSTE and  0,845 = SCA) from the dairy farms with an alternative income (0,679= CRSTE, 0,787= VRSTE and 0,855 = SCA).There are diferences in the number of eficiente farms : income only from agriculture (6 in CRSTE and  SCA, and 13 in VRSTE) and alternative income only 1 eficiente firm. The income per hectare and milk production are bigger in dairy farms which income is agriculture 1032.8€/há per year and 8104.8 liter of milk per cow and year ), the farms with alternative income had a lower values (730,9€/ha and 7666 liters of milk per cow and year ). Database of 2011 and 91 dairy farms of Azores islands (Portugal)

Decision making on investment into any source of income will depend on the opportunity costs of labour and capital/land. If agriculture is not the primary source of income it is likely that the opportunity costs will be higher.

Thanks Pieter

Dear Sunil:

One hypothesis to explore is that if agriculture is not the primary source of income, there is some income diversification, therefore lower risk, which explain lower- perceived cost of adopting new technologies or introducing innovations in agriculture.  Across Latin American Countries you will see that income diversification is associated with higher agriculture value added per worker (productivity).  

Regards,

Thanks Joaquin

Smallholder agricultural producers tend to base their production on consumption needs and production needs. The most important factor is acces to cash since with cash they can buy all other investments like labour, fertilizer,fuel etc. Offfarm income may very well lead to higher agricultural investments and higher yields but this depends on the farming system, the overall economic situation (prices, living costs, transport etc) as well as on social factors as status, continuity of off farm income and personal situation.

Dear Sunil

Your hypothesis about the agriculture as a source of income...................as primary or secondary matters to affect the agriculture land productivity and efficiency....................  A mixed group with both of the  characteristics in population may  neutralize the cascading effect on agriculture land productivity and efficiency ...........................................Subsequently, this chain of simultaneous equation may  help to get the answer.........................................................................which will/wil not support the   income diversification, adopting new technologies or introducing innovations in agriculture. I agree with Joaquin Arias  opinion that income diversification is associated with higher agriculture value added per worker (productivity).  

Regards,

We may look from perspective of impact of income dependency on total factor productivity in agriculture. We may test hypothesis that low income  dependency on agriculture have negative impact on Total Factor Productivity (TFP)

Thanks Maya and Raj

To Anoop Kumar Srivastava - we look at big Farms as a whole, I remember my father divided his 40 acre tea garden into five acre 8 units. He could use his machinery mostly small farm machinary very efficiently. He changed his strategy over the years he reduced the number of bushes from 5500 to 2500. Then diversify with other crops like spices etc. He use for to compare income separately and the workers to benefited. He initially did this to increase utilization of all the small mechinary

In Sri Lanka the CoP of a liter is in between Rs 10 to Rs 20. The sale price now depending on Fat and SnF is in between Rs 65 to Rs 90. So the turnover is enormous. 550% to 900% I am with farmers and observing their reaction