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theses

This study evaluated the impacts of fertilizer deep placement (FDP) technology introduced by the International Fertilizer Development Center (IFDC) in the designated Feed the Future (FTF) districts in Southwestern Bangladesh. The traditional method of applying fertilizer to rice in this area is broadcasting urea on the flooded rice fields just before planting the crop and then broadcasting more urea after the rice is established. The rice plants absorb only about 30% of the nitrogen that is broadcasted and the rest ends up polluting water sources with excess nitrates and emitting nitrous oxide (N20) through volatilization. The IFDC introduced fertilizer deep placement (FDP) technology to farmers in Bangladesh to improve domestic food security and farmer resiliency among the most vulnerable populations to climate change. According to the IFDC, FDP increases the efficiency of nitrogen applied by placing urea briquettes 7-10 cm into the soil by the roots. The urea briquettes slowly release nitrogen in the soil increasing the plant’s absorption of nutrients and decreases nitrates released into the air, irrigated water and runoff. The objective of this research was to examine the effects of adopting FDP technology on farmer yields, fertilizer productivity and revenues and the differences in fertilizer input (kg/ha) between broadcasting and FDP application. This study uses data from a survey of 2,000 farmers from 10 districts in Southwest Bangladesh collected in 2015 and 2016. All farmers surveyed used either deep-placement and/or broadcast prilled urea, thus all farmers used fertilizer during production. The surveyed population is divided into two treatment groups: (1) Fully adopted FDP; and (2) Mixed users using both fertilizer practices. Their yields, revenues, fertilizer productivity and average fertilizer inputs are analyzed through OLS fixed effects regressions. The results show a positive significant relationship between fertilizer deep placement use and yields, total revenues, net-revenues and fertilizer productivity. There is a negative significant relationship between FDP technology and average fertilizer input. The farmers that fully adopted fertilizer deep placement had higher yields, revenues and fertilizer productivity, and less fertilizer input than the mixed and broadcasted users. Additionally, the adoption behavior in the 2015 treatment groups is compared to the behavior in 2016 from the surveyed households. Our study shows that deep-placement technology can be a climate-smart practice in helping farmers mitigate greenhouse gas emissions and slow climate change; however, it continues to face adoption barriers for farmers in Bangladesh.

ETD_9532

M.S.

Includes bibliographical references

by Selen Altiok

doi:10.7282/t3-fcpp-gz41

ETD graduate

The author owns the copyright to this work.