How Gendered Is Farm Technology Adoption? Evidence From India
25 February 2026, New Delhi: Indian agricultural policy has long worked with a neat fiction: a single, rational decision-maker called “the farmer” who receives information, weighs costs and benefits, and decides whether the household should adopt a new technology. That stylized figure—almost always imagined as a man—rarely corresponds to how real farm decisions unfold. In many rural households, men and women inhabit separate information ecosystems, and wield unequal influence over what finally happens on the farm.
As India accelerates its shift toward water-saving, precision agriculture, understanding these dynamics is not a constraint but an opportunity. By recognizing how information flows inside households, policy can unlock faster and more equitable adoption of promising technologies.
Men and women hear different signals
Laser land levelling (LLL), a precision land-preparation technique, illustrates how these internal household dynamics matter. LLL uses a laser-guided bucket to create an even field surface, cutting water use by 10%-30% and lowering diesel consumption by around 24%. For eastern Uttar Pradesh’s smallholders—who operate barely 1.3 acres on average and spend about 1,650 rupees ($18) per acre on diesel—these savings translate into roughly 350 rupees ($4) per acre in the first year alone.
Yet the information that households receive about LLL travels through sharply gendered channels. Men’s agricultural networks tend to be smaller. Women’s agricultural networks are, on average, around 26% larger. These channels rarely overlap: in nearly one-third of households, only one spouse hears from an adopter. In effect, a new technology often reaches either the man or the woman, not both. This means extension efforts—advisories, demonstrations, and training sessions—that communicate only with the male “household head” reach just part of the household’s learning space.
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