On the transferability of the Asian rice green revolution to rainfed areas in sub‐Saharan Africa: an assessment of technology intervention in Northern Ghana

This article investigates the impact of technical intervention on the adoption of a set of improved rice production technologies, as well as on productivity and profit for smallholders in rainfed lowland areas in Northern Ghana. The key finding is that productivity and profit are significantly enhanced when modern varieties (MVs) and chemical fertilizer are adopted, coupled with water control techniques. This is essentially the transfer of the Asian Green Revolution to sub‐Saharan Africa. Such transfer, however, is not truly successful unless information about the use of MVs and fertilizer is directly disseminated by extension activities.     

Modern rice technology and regional wage differentials in the Philippines

Fear has been widely expressed that the modern rice varieties have created large disparities in regional income distribution, as the productivity gap between favorable and unfavorable rice-production environments widened due to differential technology adoption throughout South and Southeast Asia over the last two decades. Technology affects the income of farm population directly through its effects on productivity and factor use, and indirectly through its effect on factor prices. In particular, the ultimate distributional impact of modern varieties will critically depend on the interregional labor-market adjustments through migration in response to regional wage differentials created by the differential technology adoption, since labor is the main resource of the majority of the rural population. We studied favorable and unfavorable rice-growing villages in the Philippines, and found that adoption of modern varieties during the 1970s was positively related to population growth rate. Contrary to popular belief, no association was observed between wage rates and adoption of modern varieties as of 1986. These findings support the hypothesis that the differential adoption of modern rice varieties induced interregional labor migration toward equalization of wage income across different production environments.     

A household hedonic model of rice traits: economic values from farmers in West Africa

New crop varieties often have been promoted in developing countries based upon superior yield vis-a-vis locally available varieties. This research presents a hedonic price model for upland rice by drawing upon the input characteristics and consumer good characteristics model literature. Model specification tests determine that a combination of production and consumption characteristics best explains the willingness to pay for new upland rice varieties. The household model specification determined that five traits explain the willingness to pay for new rice varieties: plant cycle length, plant height, grain colour, elongation/ swelling and tenderness. Yield was not a significant explanatory variable of the willingness to pay for seed. The implications of this model are two-fold. First, varietal development and promotion must include post-harvest characteristics in addition to production traits when determining which varieties to promote for official release. Secondly, non-yield production characteristics such as plant height and cycle length are significant factors in producer's assessments of the value of a new variety. Overall, this paper provides an alternative explanation for limited adoption of modern upland rice varieties in West Africa: varietal evaluation programs have focused too narrowly on yield evaluation and have not promoted varieties with superior non-yield characteristics than locally available varieties.     

Resource use efficiency under self‐selectivity: the case of Bangladeshi rice producers

The paper jointly evaluates the determinants of switching to modern rice and its productivity while allowing for production inefficiency at the level of individual producers. Model diagnostics reveal that serious selection bias exists, justifying the use of a sample selection framework in stochastic frontier models. Results revealed that modern variety selection decisions are influenced positively by the availability of irrigation and gross return from rice and negatively by a rise in the relative wage of labour. Adoption of modern rice is higher in underdeveloped regions. Seasonality and geography/location does matter in adoption decisions. Stochastic production frontier results reveal that land, labour and irrigation are the significant determinants of modern rice productivity. Decreasing returns to scale prevail in modern rice production. The mean level of technical efficiency (MTE) is estimated at 0.82. Results also demonstrate that the conventional stochastic frontier model significantly overestimates inefficiency by three points (MTE = 0.79). Policy implications include measures to increase access to irrigation, tenurial reform and keeping rice prices high to boost farm returns and offset the impact of a rise in the labour wage which will synergistically increase the adoption of modern rice as well as farm productivity.     

THE MODERN SEED-FERTILISER TECHNOLOGY AND ADOPTION OF LABOUR-SAVING TECHNOLOGIES: THE PHILIPPINE CASE*

While intervillage differences in the adoption of modern rice varieties (MVs) are explained mainly by environmental variables, rather than by socioeconomic factors, relative factor prices are the most important determinants of the adoption oflabour-saving technologies. There is no indication that MV adoption is correlated with the adoption of tractors and threshers as well as cropping intensities. Adoption of direct seeding, however, appears to be associated with MV adoption.     

Factors influencing hybrid rice adoption: a Bangladesh case

As rice constitutes the major share in cereal consumption in South and East Asian countries that ranges from as low as 40 per cent in India to 97 per cent in Myanmar, to ensure food security, governments in these countries are encouraging farmers to adopt hybrid rice. This is mainly because hybrid rice provides a yield gain of 15–20 per cent over conventionally bred varieties in general. Yet, despite strenuous government efforts, farmers’ adoption rates have remained low in India, Bangladesh and Vietnam compared with China. Although studies often claim that higher seed costs and inferior grain quality are the major factors limiting hybrid rice adoption, very few studies examine the importance of socio‐economic factors and infrastructure in the adoption of hybrid rice. Using Bangladesh as a case, a comparative analysis has been made on the adoption of hybrid and modern varieties relative to traditional rice varieties and land allocation to these varieties. Econometric results indicate that general land characteristics, loan facilities and general infrastructure, such as roads, irrigation facilities and the availability of government‐approved seed dealers, significantly influence the adoption of hybrid and modern rice varieties and land allocation to these varieties compared with traditional varieties.     

INTER-REGIONAL VARIATION IN THE SPEED OF ADOPTION OF MODERN CEREAL CULTIVARS IN INDIA

Speed of adoption of modern cereal cultivars in India is measured and its inter-regional variation is investigated. Adoption speed varies widely across regions and between cereals. While profitability and production risk have been important determinants of adoption speed of high-yielding wheat and rice varieties, such factors fail to explain adequately the uptake of modern cultivars of sorghum, pearl millet and maize. A comparison with the results of other studies confirms the responsiveness of Indian farmers to economic opportunities.     

Factors explaining the low and variable profitability of fertilizer application to maize in Zambia

It is widely recognized that an “African green revolution” will require greater use of inorganic fertilizers. Often‐made comparisons note that fertilizer use rates in Africa are just 10–20% of those in Asia, Europe and the Americas. Most attempts to explain relatively low‐adoption of fertilizer assume yield responses to inorganic fertilization warrant higher application rates and hypothesize that observed use rates are limited by market‐based factors. Another explanation may be that application rates are low because African yields are less responsive to inorganic fertilizer than yields in other regions, and less responsive than analysts perceive. Examining the case of Zambia, we evaluate whether yield response to fertilizers could explain adoption and application rates. A model of yield response is constructed and a combination of estimators is employed to mitigate potential biases related to correlation between fertilizer use and unobserved heterogeneity as well as stochastic shocks. Results indicate higher fertilization rates would be marginally profitable or unprofitable in many cases given commercial fertilizer and maize prices. Phosphoric fertilizer is particularly unprofitable on acidic soils, which are common in Zambia and other areas of sub‐Saharan Africa. We propose feasible recommendations for diversifying the current government strategy to enhance crop productivity.     

FACTORS AFFECTING FERTILIZER ADOPTION IN LESS DEVELOPED COUNTRIES: AN APPLICATION OF MULTIVARIATE LOGISTIC ANALYSIS IN MALAŴI

Fertilizer is one of the critical inputs used in improving smallholder food and agricultural productivity in Mala?i. However, analytical studies to identify factors influencing fertilizer adoption have so far never been conducted in Mala?i and effects of policy changes relating to fertilizer adoption appear to be assessed subjectively. In this paper, a logit model is employed to identify the main factors influencing fertilizer use in farms surveyed in the Lilongwe Rural Development Project. In descending order, crop, farming system, crop variety, credit access, income from off-farm employment and regular labour are the main factors influencing fertilizer adoption, thus, policies impinging on these variables would be expected to have most effect on the number of fertilizer adopters, especially wholly subsistence and groundnut cash-crop farmers most of whom use no fertilizer at present.     

How does gender affect the adoption of agricultural innovations?

Why do men and women adopt agricultural technologies at different rates? Evidence from Ghana suggests that gender‐linked differences in the adoption of modern maize varieties and chemical fertilizer result from gender‐linked differences in access to complementary inputs. This finding has important policy implications, because it suggests that ensuring more widespread and equitable adoption of improved technologies may not require changes in the research system, but rather introduction of measures that ensure better access for women to complementary inputs, especially land, labor, and extension services.     

Effect of modern rice varieties and irrigation on household income distribution in Nepalese villages

Since high-yielding modern rice varieties (MVs) are adopted only in favorable production environments, significant regional productivity differentials have emerged in Nepal. This study explores the distributional consequences of such differential MV adoption based on an intensive survey of favorable and unfavorable villages. We found that MV adoption increased returns to land but decreased family labor earnings from rice production, as it facilitated the substitution of hired for family labor. As a result, the differential MV adoption did not significantly worsen the household income distribution according to the results of the counterfactual Gini decomposition analysis.     

VARIETAL CHANGE IN POST-GREEN REVOLUTION AGRICULTURE: EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE FOR WHEAT IN PAKISTAN

Yield gains may continue to be the most important factor affecting varietal change in post-Green Revolution agriculture, but they are often not as spectacular as in the initial shift to high-yielding varieties. A survey of nearly four hundred farmers was conducted to determine factors leading to slow varietal change in Pakistan, where disease vulnerability has been a particular problem. Farm-to-farm information transfer, and to a lesser degree literacy, were important in explaining varietal awareness. Farmers' opinions of general and specific yield characteristics were important in explaining varietal adoption. In contrast, formal extension appeared to have little effect on either awareness or adoption, and farmers' disease knowledge was also limited. Strengthening formal educational and extension systems may be crucial to continued agricultural productivity growth in post-Green Revolution agriculture.     

Understanding Filipino Rice Farmer Preference Heterogeneity for Varietal Trait Improvements: A Latent Class Analysis

Using an experimental methodology based on investment games, we examine whether smallholder rice farmers from Nueva Ecija, Philippines have heterogeneous preferences for improvements in 10 rice varietal traits. We use a latent class cluster approach to identify different segments of rice producing households and their distinct preferences for trait improvements. These clusters were characterised post hoc using household, farm, and marketing characteristics. On average, farmers invested the most in rice varietal trait improvements that offered opportunities to reduce losses caused by lodging, insects and diseases. We found four classes of farmers with distinct preferences for improvements in variety traits. The clusters were significantly different in terms of household and farm characteristics. These findings can guide breeding research in the development of varieties that have the traits farmers identified for improvement, and that will address the unique needs of distinct farmer segments.     

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.     

异质性农技培训主体对农户绿色农业技术采纳行为的影响研究

[目的]推广绿色农业技术是缓解生态环境恶化、保障农业高质量发展的重要途径。[方法]文章利用河北省436户设施蔬菜种植户的调研数据,选择5项绿色农业技术（抗病虫抗逆性强的新品种、生物防治、生物菌肥、生物农药和水肥一体化技术）,基于培训主体异质性视角,运用有序Probit模型实证分析公益性和市场性两种不同性质农技培训主体对农户绿色农业技术采纳强度的影响。进一步,基于技术异质性视角,运用二元Probit模型分析两种不同性质主体对农户不同类型绿色农业技术采纳的影响。[结果]（1）农技培训能够显著促进绿色农业技术采纳,其中公益性主体开展的技术培训对农户绿色技术采纳的促进效果更加显著。（2）针对不同绿色农业技术,不同性质主体开展的培训对技术采纳的促进效果存在差异,对商业化程度较高、有用性、易用性、适用性较高的技术（生物防治、生物菌肥和生物农药）,市场性主体的培训对技术采纳的促进作用更强。（3）对于有用性、易用性和适用性不高的技术（抗病虫抗逆性强的新品种和水肥一体化）,公益性主体的培训对技术采纳的促进作用更强。[结论]应加大农业绿色技术培训的普及力度,构建以公益性农技推广机构为主导,其他市场主体为补...     

Impact of land fragmentation and resource ownership on productivity and efficiency: The case of rice producers in Bangladesh

The paper analyzes the impact of land fragmentation and ownership of resources on productivity and technical efficiency in rice production in Bangladesh using farm level survey data. Results reveal that land fragmentation has a significant detrimental effect on productivity and efficiency as expected. The elasticity estimates of land fragmentation reveal that a 1% increase in land fragmentation reduces rice output by 0.05% and efficiency by 0.03%. On the other hand, ownership of key resources (land, family labour, and draft animals) significantly increases efficiency. The mean elasticity estimates reveal that a 1% increase in family labour and owned draft animal improve technical efficiency by 0.04% and 0.03%, respectively. Also, a 1% increase in the adoption of modern technology improves efficiency by 0.04%. The mean technical efficiency in rice production is estimated at 0.91 indicating little scope to improve rice production per se using existing varieties. Policy implications include addressing structural causes of land fragmentation (e.g., law of inheritance and political economy of agrarian structure), building of physical capital (e.g., land and livestock resources), improvements in extension services and adoption of modern rice technology.     

环境规制、生态认知对农户有机肥采纳行为影响研究

目的 文章利用河南省滑县503个农户的调查数据,来研究环境规制、生态认知对农户有机肥采纳行为的影响,从而更好地引导农户采纳绿色生产行为。方法 运用Logistic模型来分析环境规制、生态认知对农户有机肥采纳行为的影响,并运用中介效应来分析生态认知在环境规制影响农户有机肥技术采纳行为中所发挥的作用。结果 （1）环境规制、生态认知对农户有机肥采纳行为均具有促进作用,环境规制中的引导规制、激励规制会促进农户采纳有机肥行为,而生态认知中的生态环境污染感知、农田保护责任意识和化肥减量认知正向影响着农户有机肥采纳行为;（2）环境规制中的约束规制未显著,说明目前的环境规制存在“相对性制度失灵”,尤其在约束农户行为方面的效果较差;（3）生态认知在环境规制影响农户有机肥采纳行为中起中介效应。结论 基于当前以环境规制为主的治理背景下,政府相关部门不仅要继续增强环境规制对农户行为的约束,也要发挥好农户生态认知在环境规制影响农户行为中的作用,从而推动农村生态环境和经济效益得到较好的发展。     

Climate-resilient practices and welfare impacts on rice-cultivating households in Vietnam: Does joint adoption of multiple practices matter?

Farmers have a long history of adjusting their production practices in response to changing production conditions. Using a multinomial endogenous treatment effects model that accounts for observable and unobservable heterogeneity, this study investigates the adoption and welfare impacts of climate-resilient practices on Vietnamese rice-cultivating households. We found evidence of clear and positive welfare impacts from the adoption of canal irrigation (CI) and the joint adoption of agricultural conservation practices (CP) and CI as the main adaptation strategies to increase water stress. More importantly, although farmers with access to CI systems obtained the highest returns, the joint adoption of multiple practices still had substantially high adoption rates and significantly positive effects on rice yield, rice revenue and household income. Our findings indicate that farms' and farmers' characteristics, market information and climatic conditions are generally the main factors driving rice farmers' decisions to adopt climate-resilient technologies, both individually and jointly. Follow-up policy interventions should focus on improving CI systems and promoting the joint adoption of climate-resilient technologies to improve rice farmers' well-being and enhance their resilience capacity to cope with incoming climatic uncertainty.     

Identifying entry points to improve fertilizer use efficiency in Taihu Basin,China

Overuse of fertilizers in China causes environmental problems and high costs for farmers. In this paper we aim to identify entry points to improve fertilizer use efficiency in Taihu Basin, China. We use stochastic frontier analysis to estimate the technical and fertilizer use efficiency of rice production based on a survey held among 320 households in Wuxi, Zhenjiang and Changzhou, located upstream of Taihu Lake. Subsequently, Tobit model is applied to analyze factors influencing fertilizer use efficiency. The average technical efficiency and fertilizer use efficiency in this area in 2008 were 84.2% and 25.4% respectively. On average, rice production is thus efficient, but fertilizer use efficiency can be substantially improved. The results of the regression analyses explaining fertilizer use efficiency indicate that although extension services have stimulated the use of formula fertilizer in Taihu Basin, the use of formula fertilizer has not (yet) improved fertilizer use efficiency. Environmental awareness on water pollution and on the effect of fertilizers, off-farm income and a positive risk attitude have a significant positive effect on fertilizer use efficiency in Taihu Basin. Possessing a car or truck, labor intensity and the occurrence of disasters, on the other hand, have a significant negative effect on fertilizer use efficiency. Policies aimed at improving fertilizer use efficiency may therefore focus on increasing knowledge on the environment and fertilizer management, improving extension services and encouraging farmers to migrate or work off-farm.     

Impact of training on the intensification of rice farming: evidence from rainfed areas in Tanzania

Agricultural development is indispensable for poverty reduction and food security in sub‐Saharan Africa (SSA). This study investigates the impact of rice production training in a modified version of the System of Rice Intensification (SRI) on the performance of small‐scale rice farmers in a rainfed area of Tanzania. Utilizing the plot level variation, we employ propensity score matching (PSM) to assess the impact of training on technology adoption, productivity, and profitability. We also estimate a difference‐in‐differences model with plot fixed effects using recall panel data covering the periods before and after training. We found that trainees achieved an average paddy yield of 4.7 tons per hectare and rice profit of 191.5 USD per hectare on the plots where new technologies were adopted, which is higher by about 1.3–1.8 tons and 119–137 USD per hectare than on the other plots. Our study suggests the high potential of transforming favorable rainfed rice growing areas in SSA so as to achieve a rice Green Revolution through training in modern input use and improved agronomic practices.