The Efficacy of Renewable Energy Technology in Agriculture: Some Empirical Evidence from Bangladesh

Given the increasing trend of energy-intensive modern agriculture and the accumulated greenhouse gas emissions, the importance of low-carbon energy technology is paramount in improving energy-water-food nexus. Therefore, this study broadly evaluates the efficacy and compatibility of renewable technology-use in agriculture. This study uses the case of solar technology in irrigation in Bangladesh, since irrigation is the most energy-intensive farm operation and the country has an extensive irrigation network. The underlying motivation is that technology diffusion in agriculture is endogenous, hence it is required to assess the heterogeneity of social, economic and environmental factors in a comprehensive framework of adoption scenario. It is observed that there is a lack of conceptual, methodological and empirical approach to assessing the energy-efficiency of an irrigation technology. Precisely, it is not yet ascertained if farmers' i) financial understanding and ii) pro-environmental behavior are impacted by technology adoption. Therefore, this study will employ two choice experiments to assess and evaluate the impact of renewable energy in irrigation technology and ascertain the causal inference of its adoption. The hypotheses will be tested as follows, compared to non-solar users, solar users utilize i) more financial understanding and ii) pro-environmental motivation. It is expected to contribute to the progress of academic scholarship and policy formulation with regard to any efficient and sustainable technology diffusion in agriculture.