Impact Evaluation of Traditional Basmati Rice Cultivation in Uttarakhand State of Northern India: What Implications Does It Hold for Geographical Indications?

SummaryThis paper contributes to the impact evaluation of GIs by carrying out a case study of Basmati rice in India. Although Basmati rice is not yet an official GI, its long standing reputation for quality and GI-like protection by major importing countries except the United States (US) has rendered it a mirror image of a GI good. The analysis is based on a survey of 299 Basmati and nonBasmati rice farmers in Uttarakhand, one of the Northern states1 of India. The empirical strategy of the paper is three-pronged. First, a net income analysis has been carried out to elicit the net benefits of Basmati rice as opposed to nonBasmati rice and another competing crop in that region such as sugarcane. The findings show that Basmati rice is more profitable than the nonBasmati varieties but less so than sugarcane. In the second stage, the endogeneity-corrected Heckman selection model reveals that Basmati adoption has increased welfare of the households. Finally, a Tobit model is estimated to investigate the determining factors of Basmati adoption among the farmer households. The determining factors are found to be access to extension training facilities, a credible hedge against risk, and the availability of household labor.