Analyzing Adoption of soil Conservation Measures by Farmers in Darjeeling District, India

The study attempts to assess the key determinants of the decision to adopt soil conservation. The study area is Teesta River Watershed, in Darjeeling District in the Eastern Himalayas. In the watershed, there have been soil conservation interventions both by the individual farmers on their own farm and by the government at the sub-watershed level. The data for this study was collected through a primary survey conducted during 2013. The distinguishing features of the analysis are that if explicitly accounts for possible neighborhood effects in influencing adoption. This is captured both by identifying adoption practices among farmers who are immediately upstream, and using spatial econometric techniques that incorporate the spatial distance between neighboring farms.