Do precision land management technologies improve farm efficiency? Evidence from laser land levelling in India

Context: The Indian agriculture system is increasingly constrained by resources and climate vulnerability, with rapid groundwater depletion. This is creating an urgency for adoption of resource-efficient agricultural technologies to address sustainability challenges in intensively irrigated systems. Laser land levelling (LLL) has emerged as a prominent resource and precision land management technology. Objective: The study tries to examine the key determinants of LLL adoption and its impact on paddy productivity in Punjab. Secondly, the study also evaluates the technical efficiency of LLL in paddy production. Finally, we examine heterogeneity in technical efficiency outcomes separately for marginal landholders to assess whether the efficiency gains from LLL adoption vary by farm size. Methods: Primary survey data is collected from 885 farmers from 12 districts in Punjab, India. The sample comprises of 527 (60%) adopters and 358 (40%) non-adopters of LLL. We use a probit model to identify the key drivers of adoption and derive the inverse mills ratio for correcting the sample selection bias. The, we use propensity score matching to estimate causal impact of LLL adoption on paddy yield. Finally, we apply the stochastic production frontier framework with sample-selection correction to evaluate the technical efficiency levels. Results and Conclusions: The findings highlight that LLL adoption increases paddy yield by 2.64 quintals/acre. Efficiency estimates show that adopters achieve approximately 3% higher technical efficiency compared to non-adopters. Moreover, adoption decisions are influenced by structural and asset-related factors, including education, landholding size, and ownership of tractors and pumpsets. Notably, efficiency gains are larger for the marginal farmers, suggesting that smaller landholders may have greater scope of improvements from LLL adoption. Significance: This study contributes two fold: It provides a new empirical evidence on the determinants and impact of LLL adoption in paddy cultivation. Secondly, we develop an integrated econometric framework to address selection bias and evaluate efficiency outcomes of LLL adoption. The study highlights the multidimensional benefits of LLL in enhancing productivity and efficiency, supporting its promotion as a climate-smart technology in improving resource-use efficiency and reducing groundwater stress in rice-based farming systems in India.