Rotational grazing adoption in cattle production under a cost‐share agreement: does uncertainty have a role in conservation technology adoption?

Rotational grazing has been promoted as a best management practice with environmental benefits and associated higher revenue. Its adoption rate has been relatively low. This study investigates the role of uncertainty in the adoption of rotational grazing with a cost‐share by cattle producers. Mail survey results indicate that 63–71 per cent of cattle producers are uncertain about adoption with a government cost‐share. The study suggests that the possibility of uncertainty should be considered in cases where willingness‐to‐pay is elicited in the context of adoption of technology.     

The Dynamics of Agricultural Biotechnology Adoption: Lessons from series rBST Use in Wisconsin, 1994–2001

This article exploits panel data from Wisconsin dairy farmers to examine the dynamics of recombinant bovine somatotropin (rBST) adoption and to identify the characteristics that distinguish among nonadopters, disadopters, and early and late adopters. Panel methods are used to control for omitted variables and endogenous regressors that call into question coefficient estimates derived from cross-section adoption models. The results, however, confirm previous findings that larger farms with complementary feeding technologies are more likely to adopt rBST, nonadopters appear quite unlikely to become adopters, and rBST adoption will remain at rather moderate levels in Wisconsin.     

The spread of Conservation Agriculture: justification,sustainability and uptake

Conservation Agriculture (CA) has been practised for three decades and has spread widely. We estimate that there are now some 106 million ha of arable and permanent crops grown without tillage in CA systems, corresponding to an annual rate of increase globally since 1990 of 5.3 million ha. Wherever CA has been adopted it appears to have had both agricultural and environmental benefits. Yet CA represents a fundamental change in production system thinking. It has counterintuitive and often unrecognized elements that promote soil health, productive capacity and ecosystem services. The practice of CA thus requires a deeper understanding of its ecological underpinnings in order to manage its various elements for sustainable intensification, where the aim is to optimize resource use and protect or enhance ecosystem processes in space and time over the long term. For these reasons CA is knowledge-intensive. CA constitutes principles and practices that can make a major contribution to sustainable production intensification. This, the first of two papers, presents the justification for CA as a system capable of building sustainability into agricultural production systems. It discusses some of CA's major achievable benefits, and presents an overview of the uptake of CA worldwide to 2009. The related paper elaborates the necessary conditions for the spread of CA.     

Does IPM Have Staying Power? Revisiting a Potato‐producing Area Years After Formal Training Ended

Integrated pest management (IPM) potentially reduces pesticide use and costs of agricultural production. However, IPM is knowledge intensive and its spread may dissipate over time due to knowledge required for its effective implementation and to competing messages about pest control. We examine IPM spread and adoption several years after formal intensive IPM outreach efforts ceased in a potato‐producing region in Ecuador. We describe adoption patterns and sources of IPM knowledge in 2012 and compare them with patterns that existed when outreach ceased in 2003. Results show that IPM adoption continues in the area but with a lower proportion of farmers fully adopting all practices and a higher proportion adopting low to moderate levels as compared to 2003. Almost all potato farmers in the area use some IPM practices, reflecting a major increase in IPM use. Farmer‐to‐farmer spread has supplanted formal training and outreach mechanisms. IPM adoption significantly lowers pesticide use and saves production costs for adopters.     

Technology adoption,impact, and extension in developing countries’ agriculture: A review of the recent literature

Given the stagnant agricultural productivity and persistent food insecurity in low-income countries—notably in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA)—there has been continued interest in the adoption of new technology and its impact on productivity in these regions. To increase crop yields and sustain yield gains, recent case studies of technology adoption unanimously recommend the adoption of integrated farm management systems, particularly in SSA. On the other hand, there have been increasing numbers of studies on social network or farmer-to-farmer technology extension. These studies explore more efficient extension systems than traditional public-sector extension approaches. This article reviews both recent case studies of technology adoption and its productivity impacts as well as studies on agricultural extension to identify common findings, shortcomings, and major remaining issues.     

A Joint Framework for Analysis of Agri-Environmental Payment Programs

This article presents an approach for simultaneously estimating farmers' decisions to accept incentive payments in return for adopting a bundle of environmentally benign best management practices. Using the results of a multinomial probit analysis of surveys of over 1,000 farmers facing five adoption decisions in a voluntary program, we show how the farmers' perceptions of the desirability of various bundles change with the offer amounts and with which practices are offered in the bundle. We also demonstrate an estimator for the mean minimum willingness to accept for the adoption of a practice conditional on the cost share offers for other practices.     

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...