Research Keyword: India, ecophysiology, medicinal plant cultivation, Propensity Score Matching, adoption of technology
Research location: Gujarat, India
Research Objectives: The main objective of my doctoral thesis is to elaborate if cultivation of medicinal plants is a sustainable way for alternate income generation for tribal population near forests by a case study approach.
What do I do: My field work is based in India and I work extensively with the farmers and interview them to get detailed socioeconomic data to understand the factors affecting their decision to cultivate medicinal plants. I also collect ecophysiological data from their fields and home gardens to elucidate the growing environment of medicinal plants and correlate it with the growth and soil properties. Working with the farmers and tribal healers also helps me understand the role of medicinal plants in their social and healthcare system. I use Propensity Score Matching (PSM) to create a sample group of farmers not cultivating medicinal plants and elucidate if the treatment groups differ in socio-economic characteristics. This has important policy implications to replicate such a program in other places.
Comments for students interested in LIADS: For me, joining LIADS has been a really exciting journey and I really enjoy the diversity in the research topics and nationalities in the lab. The best learning experience, apart from my field trips, for me has been the weekly research seminars. During these seminars, everyone takes turn to present, and analyse the recent and important journal articles and critically assess them. The 10 paper review seminars trains us to elucidate, assess and logically build an argument that makes sure we are on track of our literature review and summarizing various ideas in a conscise and logical manner.
LIADS 