Farm-level determinants of product conversion: Organic milk production

We investigate the role of technology in the decision of dairy farmers to convert to organic production methods. We measure the characteristics of the production technology using data from the USDA Agricultural Resource Management Survey and a recently developed functional form that allows for a global approximation to the unknown distance function without compromising approximation at the data boundaries. Conventional dairies with lower technical efficiency, higher returns to scale, and the ability to easily substitute away from restricted inputs are more likely to convert to organic production. Findings suggest further consolidation in the conventional industry as low-performing farms exits for the organic industry.     

Forecasting the Adoption of GM Oilseed Rape: Evidence from a Discrete Choice Experiment in Germany

This paper explores farmers’ willingness to adopt genetically modified (GM) oilseed rape prior to its commercial release and estimates the ‘demand’ for the new technology. The analysis is based upon choice experiments with 202 German arable farmers. A multinomial probit estimation reveals that GM attributes such as gross margin, expected liability from cross pollination, or flexibility in returning to conventional oilseed rape significantly affect the likelihood of adoption. Neighbouring farmers’ attitudes towards GM cropping and a number of farmer and farm characteristics were also found to be significant determinants of prospective adoption. Demand simulations suggest that adoption rates are very sensitive to the profit difference between GM and non‐GM rape varieties. A monopolistic seed price would substantially reduce demand for the new technology. A monopolistic seed supplier would reap between 45% and 80% of the GM rent, and the deadweight loss of the monopoly would range between 15% and 30% of that rent. The remaining rent for farmers may be too small to outweigh possible producer price discounts resulting from the costs of segregating GM and non‐GM oilseed rape along the supply chain.     

Adoption and welfare impacts of multiple agricultural technologies: evidence from eastern Zambia

Using plot level panel data and multinomial endogenous switching regression, this article analyzes the adoption and welfare impacts of multiple agricultural technologies in eastern Zambia. We adapt a multinomial endogenous switching/treatment effect regression framework to correct for selection bias and endogeneity originating from both observed and unobserved heterogeneity. Results indicate that joint adoption of multiple agricultural technologies had greater impacts on crop yields, household incomes, and poverty than the adoption of individual components of the technology package. Our findings suggest that efforts aimed at raising household incomes and reducing poverty should focus on promoting the adoption of multiple agricultural technologies through provision of improved support services such as extension and input supply.     

Seed Market Privatisation and Farmers’ Access to Crop Technologies: The Case of Hybrid Pearl Millet Adoption in India

In India, pearl millet is a typical subsistence crop. Nonetheless, use of hybrid seeds is widespread. The first pearl millet hybrids were introduced in 1965 by the public sector. Yet, starting in the late 1980s, market liberalisation led to an increasing role of private companies in seed development and distribution. Although several studies showed that proprietary pearl millet hybrids are more productive than public hybrids and open‐pollinated varieties, the impacts of privatisation on farmers’ technology access and overall innovation rates are not yet well understood. This paper analyses the dynamics of adoption using duration models and farm survey data collected in the state of Maharashtra. The results show that education, short distances to main information sources and good market infrastructure speeded up the adoption of pearl millet hybrids. Likewise, the increasing role of private seed companies had a positive and accelerating effect on technology diffusion in the small farm sector.     

Methodologies for the Comparison of Organic and Conventional Farming Systems

The development of organic farming inmany parts of the world has depended upon a critical comparison with other, largely conventional, production systems. This paper attempts to review the methods used for such comparisons and to highlight their advantages and disadvantages. Conclusions are that classic experimentation has a valuable part to play but that more qualitative assessment can also be useful and should be encouraged. Careful allowance should bemade formajor background differences in farm management when making comparisons. Longer-term case studies, which try to monitor organic systems in their own right, should also be considered and which utilise models to help rationalise complex data where appropriate.     

人格特质对茶农有机茶技术采纳的影响

根据福建省安溪县656份的问卷调查数据,基于大五人格特质理论,运用结构方程模型分析人格特质对茶农的有机茶技术采纳行为的影响。结果表明:安溪县茶农的经营特征与其所处的技术环境对有机茶技术采纳行为不存在显著直接效应,但都通过技术采纳态度对技术采纳的行为产生正向影响作用,其中有机茶技术采纳态度起完全中介作用;人格特质对有机茶技术采纳行为既存在直接正向预测作用,又通过有机茶技术采纳态度对技术采纳行为产生间接正向预测作用,并且间接效应大于直接效应,起中介变量的作用。因此,运用人格测评工具来发挥技术采纳者的性格优势在技术采纳过程中的作用,释放有机茶技术的生态溢出效应,将为有机茶技术推广研究提供新思路。     

Analysing Production Technology and Risk in Organic and Conventional Dutch Arable Farming using Panel Data

This paper compares the production technology and production risk of organic and conventional arable farms in the Netherlands. Just–Pope production functions that explicitly account for output variability are estimated using panel data of Dutch organic and conventional farms. Prior investigation of the data indicates that within variation of output is significantly higher for organic farms, indicating that organic farms face more output variation than conventional farms. The estimation results indicate that in both types of farms, unobserved farm‐specific factors like management skills and soil quality are important in explaining output variability and production risk. The results further indicate that land has the highest elasticity of production for both farm types. Labour and other variable inputs have significant production elasticities in the case of conventional farms and other variable inputs in the case of organic farms. Manure and fertilisers are risk‐increasing inputs on organic farms and risk‐reducing inputs on conventional farms. Other variable inputs and labour are risk increasing on both farm types; capital and land are risk‐reducing inputs.     

Adoption of organic farming in Germany and Austria: an integrative dynamic investment perspective

Farm‐level adaptation to changing economic environments is often slower than expected. Technological innovations, for instance, are frequently adopted at a later date than the net present value of investment suggests. This can be explained by a model of “investment under uncertainty,” which consistently accounts for uncertainty, sunk costs, and the flexibility of investment timing. Its essential conclusion is that, due to temporal opportunity costs, critical incremental cash flows that trigger investments might be higher than those needed for simple cost recovery. This accounts for an ostensible reluctance to invest (economic hysteresis). In this article, we demonstrate how slow conversion to organic farming in general, and the different rates of conversion in Germany and Austria in particular, can be explained by the new investment theory.     

Evaluating the impact of agricultural extension on farms' performance in Crete: a nonneutral stochastic frontier approach

This article attempts to integrate the production‐ and the efficiency‐based approaches for evaluating the impact of extension on farms' performance. For this purpose the nonneutral production frontier model is used, and the empirical analysis refers to a sample of farms from Crete, Greece. The empirical results support the proposed formulation instead of either the production‐ or the efficiency‐based formulations as extension was found to have a statistically significant effect on closing both the technology and management gaps. Public and private extension services were found to be competitive in the production function and complementary in the technical inefficiency effect function. In addition, farms using both public and private extension services achieved a higher degree of technical efficiency than those using either public or private extension services, and farms with no extension services were found to be the least efficient.     

Assessing the impact of NERICA on income and poverty in central and western Uganda

Persistent food shortage and poverty in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) are major development issues. New Rice for Africa (NERICA) was developed to boost crop yield and income of rural households in SSA. Although its high-yielding traits have become fairly well known, there is no empirical analysis of its impact on income and poverty. By taking the case of Uganda where a NERICA promoting program was initiated as one of the major poverty eradication measures, this study attempts to compare actual income with the hypothetical income without NERICA. We found that introduction of NERICA decreases poverty to a significant extent without deteriorating income distribution.     

Sequential technology implementation,network externalities,and risk: the case of automatic milking systems

Using random effects and mixed effects probit regression techniques, this empirical study investigates factors for technology adoption at the firm level. We account for problems of sequential technology implementation and behavior identification. Results underscore the importance of risks faced by the agents, the effects of network externalities and peer‐group learning, and the positive influence of previous firm‐specific innovation experiences.     

Heterogeneous information exposure and technology adoption: the case of tissue culture bananas in Kenya

Classical innovation adoption models implicitly assume homogenous information flow across farmers, which is often not realistic. As a result, selection bias in adoption parameters may occur. We focus on tissue culture (TC) banana technology that was introduced in Kenya more than 10 years ago. Up till now, adoption rates have remained relatively low. We employ the average treatment effects approach to account for selection bias and extend it by explicitly differentiating between awareness exposure (having heard of a technology) and knowledge exposure (understanding the attributes of a technology). Using a sample of Kenyan banana farmers, we find that estimated adoption parameters differ little when comparing the classical adoption model with one that corrects for heterogeneous awareness exposure. However, parameters differ considerably when accounting for heterogeneous knowledge exposure. This is plausible: while many farmers have heard about TC technology, its successful use requires notable changes in cultivation practices, and proper understanding is not yet very widespread. These results are also important for other technologies that are knowledge‐intensive and require considerable adjustments in traditional practices.     

Taking a new look at empirical models of adoption: average treatment effect estimation of adoption rates and their determinants

This article shows that the observed sample adoption rate does not consistently estimate the population adoption rate even if the sample is random. It is proved that instead the sample adoption rate is a consistent estimate of the population joint exposure and adoption rate, which does not inform about adoption per se. Likewise, it is shown that a model of adoption with observed adoption outcome as a dependent variable and where exposure to the technology is not observed and controlled for cannot yield consistent estimates of the determinants of adoption. The article uses the counterfactual outcomes framework to show that the true population adoption rate corresponds to what is defined in the modern policy evaluation literature as the average treatment effect (ATE), which measures the effect or impact of a "treatment" on a person randomly selected in the population. In the adoption context, a "treatment" corresponds to exposure to the technology. The article uses the ATE estimation framework to derive consistent nonparametric and parametric estimators of population adoption rates and their determinants and applies the results to consistently estimate the population adoption rates and determinants of the NERICA (New Rice for Africa) rice varieties in Côte d'Ivoire. The ATE methodological approach developed in the article has significant policy implications with respect to judging the intrinsic merit of a new technology in terms of its potential demand by the target population independently of issues related to its accessibility and in terms of the decision to invest or not in its wide-scale dissemination.     

Yield and income effects of rice varieties with tolerance of multiple abiotic stresses: the case of green super rice (GSR) and flooding in the Philippines

With the increasing frequency of extreme climatic events, the new challenge is to develop rice varieties that are tolerant of drought, water submergence, and salinity. There are now new high‐yielding green super rice (GSR) cultivars developed at the International Rice Research Institute with increased tolerance to multiple abiotic stresses. But a clear understanding of the economic benefits of these varieties under farmers’ production environments is not yet fully understood. In this article, we assess the yield and income effects of GSR rice varieties using a two‐year panel data from one province. We use matched samples from a propensity score matching method and a fixed‐effects model within a difference‐in‐difference (DID) framework to estimate the yield effects. The income effects were evaluated using the parameter estimates from the yield/production function model. The results of the ordinary least squares and DID fixed‐effects regressions reveal significant and positive effects of GSR varieties on yield. The most important finding is that the benefits from these varieties are strongly felt when there is flooding. This evidence was not as robust when matched samples were used. However, it is clear that the yield benefits from GSR varieties could improve rice food security and help alleviate poverty in the country.     

Technology Adoption and Pest Control Strategies Among UK Cereal Farmers: Evidence from Parametric and Nonparametric Count Data Models

This paper examines the intensity of technology adoption and integrated pest management strategies employed by UK farmers, using both parametric and nonparametric methods. We employ a unique survey dataset collected from UK cereal farmers to assess the determinants of technology adoption in relation to pest management. Our preferred model specification is nonparametric, with models estimated yielding broadly similar results, with some important qualitative differences. All models indicate that total area farmed is positively related to the number of technologies adopted, whereas the number of years of experience of the farmer is negatively related. We also find evidence with our nonparametric specification of significant statistical differences for number of adoptions by region across the UK.     

Farmers’ objectives as determinants of organic farming adoption: the case of Catalonian vineyard production

This article assesses the decision to adopt organic farming practices. We use Duration Analysis (DA) to determine why farmers adopt organic farming practices and what influences the timing of adoption. We extend previous studies by including farmers’ objectives, risk preferences, and agricultural policies as covariates in the DA model. The Analytical Hierarchy Process is used as a multicriteria decision‐making methodology to measure farmers’ objectives. The empirical analysis uses farm‐level data from a sample of vineyard farms in the Spanish region of Catalonia. Farmers’ objectives are found to influence the conversion decision. Moreover, farmers who are not risk averse are more likely to adopt organic farming. Results point to the policy changes that have been most relevant in motivating adoption of organic practices.     

Extension services,product quality and yields: the case of grapes in Argentina

This article studies the impact of publicly subsidized agricultural extension services on yields and product quality. We use panel data from grape producers in Mendoza, Argentina to estimate the impacts of farmer trainings. We find a negative overall impact on yields and evidence of a positive average impact on the adoption of higher‐quality grape varieties. By analyzing the dynamic pattern of the estimated effects, we find evidence of a temporary decrease in yields suggesting the existence of an adjustment process following the introduction of higher‐quality grapes. The overall negative effect on yield is driven by a sharp drop in the year of participation. This fades after year one, and two to three years after treatment we observe increases in higher‐quality grape production. Findings reinforce the importance of temporal dimension of extension services.     

Spousal Effect and Timing of Retirement

The retirement decisions of individuals are strongly influenced by spousal retirement, financial incentives and institutional constraints such as access to early retirement benefits. In the European Union (EU), farm retirement is encouraged by early retirement provisions for farmers. As exit from farming determines the characteristics of structural change in agriculture, it is important to find out how spousal retirement and economic incentives affect the timing and type of retirement decisions among elderly farmers. This paper analyses the timing of early retirement decisions of farming couples using duration analysis and different exit channels. The empirical analysis is based on Finnish farm‐level panel data for the period 1993–1998. The results suggest that an expected pension particularly advances farm transfers. Farming couples are found to co‐ordinate their early retirement decisions. However, farmers are not found to co‐ordinate their early retirement according to spousal retirement under other pension schemes.