Using the uniquely detailed data from a rural food insecure agrarian setting of Nepal, this
study examined the relationships between family labor availability and use of modern
labor-saving mechanical and bio-chemical technologies in agriculture among smallholder
farmers. I use the labor demand framework to examine the relationships. Results from
multi-nominal logistic regression revealed that the availability of family labor, both males
and females, discouraged the use of such technologies in crop production net of householdand
neighborhood-level factors. These findings provide important insights in leveraging
problems of food insecurity through smallholder agricultural transformation in developing
countries.