Agricultural policies continue to rationalize chemical fertilizer subsidy provisions for enhancing crop productivity and food security despite limited evidence of their positive outcomes. This study examines the factors that influence farmers’ willingness to pay more for chemical fertilizers than the government-subsidized price. It also investigates how farmers’ willingness to pay (WTP) for chemical fertilizers shapes agroecological transitions using the path dependence and lock-in concepts. The study used a convergent mixed-methods research design and surveyed a total of 800 farming households in Nepal. The descriptive analysis was carried out first, followed by the Chi-square tests and logistic regression models. Gender, education level, age, caste/ethnicity, landholding size, and migration status did not have a significant effect on farmers’ WTP for chemical fertilizers. However, some behavioral elements’ effects were revealed. Farmers using chemical fertilizers for over ten years were four times more likely to have WTP compared to those using them for less than five years (OR:3.92; p<0.01; CI:1.45-10.59). Likewise, farmers with perceived economic advantage of chemical fertilizer were three times more likely to have WTP than those who did not (OR: 3.26; p<0.01; CI: 1.86-5.73). These findings highlight that farmers’ WTP for chemical fertilizers reflects behavioral lock-ins to conventional agriculture. These lock-ins reinforce the chemical path dependence and create barriers to adopting agroecological practices, thereby impeding progress toward sustainable food systems. The study argues that agroecology may not be adopted simply because of its long-term benefits. Multidimensional factors, including the fear of yield loss without chemical inputs influence farmers’ decision making for shifting their current food production practices. SAARC J. Agric., 24(1): 69-86 (2026)
Micronutrient malnutrition commonly referred to as “hidden hunger” which continues to affect more than two billion people worldwide, particularly in low and middle-income countries. Traditional interventions such as supplementation and industrial food fortification have had limited reach and sustainability. Biofortification, the process of increasing the nutrient content of crops through agronomy, conventional breeding, or modern biotechnology, offers a cost-effective and sustainable solution. While staple crops have been the primary focus, fruit biofortification is emerging as a powerful strategy due to fruits’ inherent richness in vitamins, antioxidants, and phytochemicals, and their widespread raw consumption. This review synthesizes the latest advances in biofortification including agronomic practices, marker-assisted selection, genomic tools, and genome editing (e.g., CRISPR/Cas9) of different fruit crops. Successful case studies involving provitamin A-enriched bananas in Uganda, vitamin C-rich apples in China, carotenoid-rich citrus fruits in Brazil and Spain, anthocyanin-enhanced berries in the USA and Chile, and iron-fortified mangoes in India demonstrate the potential of biofortified fruits to improve human nutrition and food security. Challenges related to regulation, public acceptance, and technical capacity are critically analyzed. The paper concludes that fruit biofortification, if mainstreamed into agriculture and nutrition policies, could play a transformative role in global food and nutrition security. With evolving biotechnology and supportive policies, fruit biofortification is poised to bridge the gap between agricultural innovation and public health nutrition. SAARC J. Agric., 24(1): 287-300 (2026)
Onion (Allium cepa L.), also known as the bulb onion or common onion is an important spicy vegetable that are used as food and medicinal purpose. It is infested by several types of insect pests that reduce the yield of onion. With a view to develop eco-friendly management approaches against onion thrips, a field experiment was conducted at the research farm of Sher-e-Bangla Agricultural University, Dhaka, during the Rabi season in 2023-24. The experiment followed a randomized complete block design (RCBD) with ten treatments, each replicated three times. The treatments were T1= onion intercropped with carrot, T2= onion intercropped with coriander, T3= onion intercropped with tomato, T4= onion + blue sticky trap, T5= onion + white sticky trap, T6= neem oil spray at 7-day interval, T7= Spirotetramat spry at 7-day interval, T8= Abamectin spray at 7-day interval, T9= Spinosad at 7-day intervals, and T10= control. All treatments significantly reduced the thrips population and leaf infestation caused by thrips compared to the untreated control. The lowest thrips population (1.30 thrips/plant at 51 DAT, 2.20 thrips/plant at 100 DAT and cumulative mean population (2.20), percent reduction of thrips population over control (76.79%) and minimum leaf infestation (19.13% at 100 DAT, cumulative mean infestation (13.28%), and percent reduction of leaf infestation over control 64.36%) were observed in the plot treated with Spinosad and returned the highest bulb height (5.79 cm), bulb width (7.71 cm), bulb weight (45.00 g), and yield (18.33 t/ha). Besides, the results from correlation coefficient indicated that some parameters (thrips population and percent leaf infestation) are shown significantly negative correlation with yield and some parameters (thrips population) are significantly explored positive with percent leaf infestation. Therefore, the findings of present study suggest that applying Spinosad at seven-day interval from the initial thrips infestation is an effective strategy for managing thrips in onions. SAARC J. Agric., 23(2): 159-171 (2025)
This study was undertaken to investigate the stochastic impact of future climate conditions on the rice market and to identify the policy measures for poverty reduction in Bangladesh. Using of supply and demand structure of Bangladesh and secondary data collected from various published and online sources. The study period is divided into two periods where the first period (1977-2010) is taken for the parameter’s estimation of reference model and the second period (2011-2030) for comprehensive investigation of stochastic impact. To capture the probabilistic nature of climate variability, a random variable method and the inverse function of the cumulative standard normal distribution were applied. After big set of calibration, a percentile group by 90th and another group by 10th percentiles were set as upper and lower boundary to compare with the calibrated model output. Under stochastic climate impacts, rice yield variations ranged from 0.41 ton/ha to 1.78 ton/ha across the three major rice-growing seasons, clearly indicating the potential effects of climate shocks on future rice production. It undeniably clarifies the stochastic impact of climate shock on rice production in the future. Stochastic shock of climate increases the variation of rice price up to 33% in 2020, which may increase the vulnerable people by 25% through food expenditure increase. Such price instability will elevate food policy concerns through upward pressure on rice prices. Therefore, policymakers and economic policy interventions will play a crucial role in mitigating the stochastic impacts of climate shocks on the rice market. SAARC J. Agric., 23(2): 119-143 (2025)
Macronutrients concentration is an important benchmark to evaluate wheat variety for grain yield and quality parameters. The low nutrients density in grain is bound to affect nutrition quality and causing malnutrition problem and hindrance meeting UN sustainable development goals (UN-SDGs). Grain macronutrients concentration was determined in ninety-seven (97) wheat genotypes. Results showed that all wheat landraces were deficient in major elements. The low nutrients status can be attributed to inadequate supply of these nutrients-based fertilizers in wheat production system and soil characteristics. SAARC J. Agric., 23(2): 285-293 (2025)
