A recipe for success? Learning from the rapid adoption of improved chickpea varieties in Ethiopia

Many studies detail constraints deemed responsible for the limited adoption of new technologies among smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa. By contrast, here we study the conditions that led to the remarkably fast spread of improved chickpea varieties in Ethiopia. Within just seven years, the adoption rate rose from 30 to 80% of the farmers. A combination of factors explains the rapid uptake. Their attraction lay in superior returns and disease resistance. Chickpea was already an important crop for rural households in the studied districts, for both cash income and consumption. Good market access and an easy accessibility of extension services advanced the adoption process. Thus, an attractive technology suitable for rural households in a conducive environment enabled adoption. Our findings prompt us to stress the importance of tailoring agricultural innovations to the realities and demands of rural households, and the need to design and deploy interventions on the basis of ex-ante knowledge on factors potentially determining their success or failure.     

Welfare impacts of maize–pigeonpea intensification in Tanzania

This article examines the driving forces behind farmers’ decisions to adopt improved pigeonpea and maize and estimates the causal impact of technology adoption on household welfare using data obtained from a random cross‐section sample of 613 small‐scale farmers in Tanzania. We use seemingly unrelated and recursive bivariate probit regressions to test the endogeneity and joint decision making of pigeonpea–maize production. A double hurdle model is used to analyze the determinants of the intensity of technology adoption conditional on overcoming seed access constraints. To address the impact of adoption on welfare, the article employs both propensity score matching and switching regression techniques. Results from bivariate probit models show that unobservable factors cause both decisions to be correlated but the finding does not support the conjecture that both decisions are made jointly. Overall the analysis of the determinants of adoption identifies inadequate local supply of seed, access to information, human capital, and access to private productive asset as key constraints for pigeonpea technology adoption. The causal impact estimation from both the propensity score matching and switching regression suggests that maize/pigeonpea adoption has a positive and significant impact on income and consumption expenditure among sample households.     

Market imperfections,access to information and technology adoption in Uganda: challenges of overcoming multiple constraints

Limited empirical evidence exists on how multiple binding constraints influence the adoption of improved technologies by smallholder farmers. This article uses the case of groundnut variety adoption in Uganda to investigate the role of information, seed supply, and credit constraints in conditioning technology uptake. New data from a household survey in seven groundnut growing districts (n = 945) indicate that 8% of farmers lack information on new varieties, while 18% and 6% of farmers, respectively, cannot adopt mainly due to seed supply and capital constraints. A tobit‐type specification that considers all nonadopters as being uninterested in the technology (i.e., corner solutions) would lead to inconsistent parameter estimates and incorrect conclusions in this context. We therefore estimate a modified multi‐hurdle specification of demand for new varieties, taking into account how information, seed supply, and capital constraints jointly determine adoption probability and intensity. The study reveals new empirical insights on why agricultural technology adoption in Africa has lagged behind: slow uptake is not mainly due to a lack of economic incentives, but rather a reflection of information, seed supply, and credit constraints that prevent farmers from translating their desired demand into adoption of modern varieties. Policy implications are discussed.     

减量增效技术的选择性采纳与集成推广策略

[目的]基于农户“选择性采纳”特征开展减量增效技术的系统集成与打包推广,是降低推广成本、提高推广效率的重要途径。[方法]文章运用2017—2018年浙江省638户稻农调研数据,基于列联分析、Order Probit与Multivariate Probit模型,从采纳强度和采纳结构两个方面,分析了农户化肥减量增效技术选择性采纳特征及其影响因素。[结果]农户选择性采纳现象十分普遍,且技术属性与资源禀赋共同塑造了选择性采纳特征：（1）采纳强度较低,减肥技术平均采纳强度为1.74项。（2）虽然总体上农户更加偏好资金密集型技术,但采纳结构差异明显,多项减肥技术采纳决策中同时存在替代与互补关系。（3）禀赋约束是决定农户选择性采纳的重要因素,其中劳动力数量、家庭收入等经济禀赋决定了劳动力密集型与资本密集型技术的取舍进而影响了采纳强度与采纳结构,而参与技术培训、加入合作社等社会禀赋则有助于缓解经济禀赋约束。[结论]减量增效技术的集成推广应基于农户资源禀赋异质性,制定更为灵活化、差异化的推广方案。     

Adoption of weather‐index insurance: learning from willingness to pay among a panel of households in rural Ethiopia

In this article we examine which farmers would be early entrants into weather‐index insurance markets in Ethiopia, were such markets to develop on a large scale. We do this by examining the determinants of willingness to pay for weather insurance among 1,400 Ethiopian households that have been tracked for 15 years as part of the Ethiopian Rural household Survey. This provides both historical and current information with which to assess the determinants of demand. We find that educated, wealthier individuals are more likely to purchase insurance. Risk aversion is associated with low insurance take‐up suggesting that models of technology adoption can inform the purchase and spread of weather index insurance. We also assess how willingness to pay varied as two key characteristics of the contract were varied and found that basis risk reduces demand for insurance particularly when the price of the contract is high, and that provision of insurance through groups is preferred by female headed households and individuals with lower levels of education.     

Adoption and diffusion of improved technologies and production practices in agriculture: Insights from a donor-led intervention in Nepal

Adoptions of improved technologies and production practices are important drivers of agricultural development in low-income countries like Nepal. Adopting a broad class of such technologies and practices is often critical for meeting the multifaceted goals of efficiency, profitability, environmental sustainability, and climate resilience. This study aims to address the knowledge gaps that still exist concerning what determines the adoption of improved technologies and production practices, the factors affecting their diffusion, the impact of interventions on productivity and crops grown, and the variability of impact within a particular country context. In this paper we address these questions using data collected as part of the USAID-led Knowledge-Based Integrated Sustainable Agriculture in Nepal (KISAN) project. We adopted a multistage sampling technique and surveyed 988 beneficiary households and 997 non-beneficiary households in KISAN intervention districts and non-intervention districts. Our findings suggest that, in Nepal, adoption of improved technologies and practices is significantly increased by improved access to markets, private sector involvement in selling improved seeds and disseminating information, membership in progressive farmers groups and cooperative societies, participation in agricultural training and farm visits, provision of subsidies for seeds, and access to credit. We also found the probability of the adoption of improved practices to be affected by farmers’ sources of information; for instance, the adoption of improved practices was increased when farmers obtained information from informal sources, cooperatives/farmers organizations, and public and private extension programs. The effects of KISAN projects vary significantly across the different crops grown, based on the evaluation models that address self-selection of both project participation and crop choices. These implications may also apply to other parts of the world facing similar challenges as Nepal, where limited market access, insufficient knowledge and resource capacity of farmers constrain their adoption of improved technologies and practices in agriculture.     

资本禀赋、生态认知与农户水土保持技术采用行为研究——基于生态补偿政策的调节效应

本文基于黄土高原地区陕西、甘肃和宁夏3省份1152户农户调查数据,构建资本禀赋、生态认知、生态补偿政策和农户水土保持技术采用行为的理论模型,运用Heckman样本选择模型进行实证分析,揭示资本禀赋、生态认知、生态补偿政策对农户水土保持技术采用行为的影响机理。研究结果表明:(1)资本禀赋中,农用机械数量、林地面积对农户水土保持技术采用及采用程度都具有显著的正向影响,耕地面积对采用程度有显著的正向作用,总收入对采用行为有显著的负向作用,相互信任对采用行为有显著的正向作用;(2)农户生态认知对其水土保持技术采用行为具有显著的正向作用;(3)生态补偿政策对农户采用水土保持技术具有显著的正向作用,并且对资本禀赋、生态认知与水土保持技术采用及采用程度关系中具有正向调节效应。     

政府培训、技术认知与农户生态农业技术采纳行为以稻虾共养技术为例

[目的]农户作为生态农业技术最直接的采纳者,其对生态农业技术有着独立的选择权,农户是否采纳生态农业技术直接影响到该技术的推广效率。稻虾共养技术实现了水稻种植和小龙虾养殖相协调,该技术符合生态农业技术的要求。因此,文章以稻虾共养技术为例,通过分析江苏省和湖北省稻虾共养技术推广情况,以期提高农户对稻虾共养技术的采纳行为,并重点从政府培训、农户技术认知、农户个体特征、家庭经营特征和社会网络等五方面研究其对农户采纳稻虾共养技术的影响。[方法]运用二元Logistic模型和Bootstrap方法,基于江苏省和湖北省共612份农户的微观调研数据,实证分析了政府培训、技术认知对农户稻虾共养技术采纳行为的影响及其内在作用机制。[结果](1)政府培训次数和政府培训有效性对农户稻虾共养技术采纳行为有显著的正向影响,政府培训及时性对农户稻虾共养技术采纳行为的影响效果不显著;(2)其内在作用机制主要体现在,政府培训有效性可以提高农户技术认知水平,降低其技术应用风险,最终促使农户产生技术采纳行为;(3)户主是否村干部、是否加入合作社等对农户采纳稻虾共养技术有显著的正向影响,而户主年龄和耕地块数对其技术采纳行为有显著的负向影响。[结论]政府培训能够提高农户对生态农业技术的采纳行为,并且政府通过技术培训,可以提高农户对生态农业技术的认知,进而对农户技术采纳行为产生显著的正向影响。     

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.     

Household Determinants of the Adoption of Improved Cassava Varieties using DNA Fingerprinting to Identify Varieties in Farmer Fields: A Case Study in Colombia

We examine factors affecting the adoption of improved cassava varieties of 217 households in the Cauca Department in southwest Colombia. Using DNA fingerprinting through Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms (SNPs), we identified different cultivars in farmers fields. We also used this information to remove possible bias in the adoption model that could have resulted from a misclassification of improved varieties (IVs). As a result, we found that farmers substantially overestimate their use of IVs and there are important differences in the determinants of adoption between farmer self‐identification and DNA fingerprinting. This finding implies that the incorporation of DNA fingerprinting in IV adoption studies is important to ensure the accuracy of future agricultural economic research and the relevance of subsequent policy recommendations.     

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.     

设施蔬菜绿色生产技术采纳影响因素与经济效益研究——以河北省定兴县为例

[目的]农业资源环境是农业产品质量保障的基础,农业科技创新有力支撑农业产业发展,探究农业绿色生产技术的影响因素与经济效益,对保障农业产业绿色发展,提高农户绿色生产积极性具有重要意义。[方法]文章基于2020年河北省定兴县实地调研所得的219份农户数据,通过二元Logistic模型分析农户采纳绿色生产技术的影响因素,在此基础上运用倾向得分匹配方法研究技术采纳对农户家庭经济效益的作用水平。[结果]（1）虽然定兴县绿色生产技术推广取得一定成效,共有67.58%的农户采纳一种或多种绿色生产技术,但采纳程度有待提高。（2）农户的年龄、受教育程度、大棚类型、是否加入合作社、是否接受技术培训以及政府是否给予指导显著影响农户技术采纳决策。（3）采纳绿色生产技术的农户与未采纳组相比每公顷年均收入增加28.44%;测土配方技术、病虫害绿色防控技术分别带来26.52%和14.90%的增收效应,并分别在1%和5%的水平上显著,节水灌溉技术和废弃物循环利用技术增收效果不显著。[结论]绿色生产技术能显著提高农户收入,因此政府要加强对绿色生产技术的推广,通过技术培训、经济激励、构建技术推广体系等措施提高农户绿色生产...     

Determinants of Smallholders’ Decisions to Leave Land Fallow: The Case of Kosovo

This article investigates why farmers in Kosovo leave land fallow when their farms’ total land area is small and households, almost fully dependent on farming for their livelihoods, are large. It uses a comprehensive survey carried out during the agricultural year 2005/2006 to explore agricultural households’ perceptions of production, market conditions and general security 6 years after the end of the military conflict in the former Yugoslavia. Several locational, household and farm characteristics empirically approximate the significance of different factors for the amount of land left idle. Two different econometric models are used to address the characteristics of the dependent variable distribution by accounting for endogeneity. The main determinants of the share of land left fallow are found to be related to the economic and institutional structure, and to the general feeling of insecurity.     

Perpetuating poverty through exclusion from social programmes: lessons from Andhra Pradesh

ABSTRACT

What factors underlie the exclusion of some poor households from welfare programmes? This article analyses the question through a comparative examination of households’ demographic characteristics, social capital and communities’ spatial (dis)advantage as determinants of enrolment in three social programmes in Andhra Pradesh, India. The main findings indicate that traditionally marginalised demographic groups do not experience programme exclusion significantly more than other groups, but that households’ social-network capital and communities’ spatial advantage increase households’ programme inclusion. The importance of social capital for programme inclusion wanes, however, in spatially more advantaged communities.     

The fourth industrial revolution,agricultural and rural innovation,and implications for public policy and investments: a case of India

The Indian Government and public–private partnerships are developing and disseminating a dizzying number of innovative, networked solutions, broadly known as the Digital India initiative, to increase the efficiency of safety nets and worker productivity and to improve life. Yet, challenges to turn the power of information and other technologies into a farmer‐friendly technological revolution for India's 156 million rural households are considerable, including: (1) reliable, up‐to‐date, location‐specific message content for a diverse agriculture to help stratified households shift to productive, knowledge‐intensive agriculture as a business—government, private sector, and civil society have big roles to play; (2) digital literacy, i.e., teaching farmers how to choose and use apps, even where the digital divide is absent; apps are, or soon to be, in regional languages; and (3) monitoring actual use and impacts on users’ lives by understanding the adoption and adaptation processes. These challenges call for bottom‐up, complementary investments in physical, human, and institutional capital, and farmer‐friendly e‐platforms, while forging ahead with many top‐down policy and institutional reforms currently underway, in which progress is real and constraints holding back greater success are better understood.     

Drivers of sustainable intensification in Kenyan rural and peri-urban vegetable production

Sustainable intensification promotes environmentally sound and productive agriculture. However, use of sustainable intensification practices (SIPs) is low in many sub-Sharan African countries. This study examined the adoption of SIPs in Kenyan rural and peri-urban vegetable production to understand the scale of and underlying factors in the use of SIPs. A multistage sampling technique was employed to randomly select 685 rural and peri-urban vegetable farm households. Household data was then collected and anaylsed for four practices namely improved irrigation, integrated soil fertility, organic manure and crop diversification using a pre-tested structured questionnaire. A multivariate probit model was run to model simultaneous interdependent adoption decisions. Adoption of organic manure and African indigenous vegetables (AIV) diversification was high in both rural and peri-urban areas. However, adoption of improved irrigation systems and integrated soil fertility management was low, and even significantly lower in rural areas than in peri-urban areas (p?相似文献   

Labor allocation to non-timber extraction in a Mexican rainforest community

This paper analyzes the determinants of participation in the extraction of xate palm, the most important non-timber forest product in the Mexican Lacandona Rainforest (Selva Lacandona) in terms of its contribution to cash income for households. Results show that low opportunity costs and low human capital, two strong correlates of rural poverty, significantly explain the degree of participation in xate extraction. This gives reasons to be moderately optimistic about the poverty-reduction potential of programs that successfully increase the price of xate received by extractors.     

Resource constraints and partial adoption of conservation agriculture by hand-hoe farmers in Mozambique

Conservation agriculture is a set of practices widely promoted to increase agricultural productivity while conserving soil through reduced tillage, mulching and crop rotation. Adoption levels are low across southern Africa and farmers often use only some components on small portions of their land. This study uses in-depth interviews and partial budget analysis to explore adoption of conservation agriculture in Mozambique's Angonia highlands. Farmers described many benefits but there was little sign of adoption beyond plots where non-governmental organizations promoting conservation agriculture had provided inputs. Most farmers were adamant that conservation agriculture could perform better than conventional agriculture only if they applied fertilizer or compost. With current costs and prices, conservation agriculture is unprofitable except on small plots for farmers with low opportunity cost of household labour. These findings suggest that conservation agriculture can improve maize yields but capital and labour constraints limit adoption to small plots in the absence of free or subsidized inputs. Given the current ranges of prices for grain and inputs these manual forms of conservation agriculture will not be adopted on a large scale in Angonia. Nevertheless, small conservation agriculture plots can provide farmers with high yields where constraints are lowest.     

Adoption of alternate wetting and drying (AWD) irrigation as a water-saving technology in Bangladesh: Economic and environmental considerations

Managing scarce irrigation water poses a major challenge globally because of changing climate and a rising population. Alternate wetting and drying (AWD) is widely regarded as a water-saving irrigation technology capable of contributing to sustainable water-use. Existing literature lacks rigorous quantitative analysis of the determinants and effects of AWD adoption. In contrast, applying logit, propensity score matching and multiple regression models to survey data from two drought-prone and groundwater-depleted areas in Bangladesh, this study identifies determinants and effects of AWD adoption and explores policy implications. Age and education-level of household head, access to prior weather information, landownership, topography, and soil-type are found to be significant determinants of AWD adoption. AWD is found to be water-saving, irrigation cost-decreasing and crop yield-increasing. However, AWD adoption in Bangladesh is not widespread. Major policy implications include information dissemination about the use and benefit of AWD through farmers’ education and training for widespread adoption and diffusion of water-saving technologies. A rationally coordinated system of policy measures including significant strengthening of institutional support services, scientific research, rethinking of the cropping-mix and greater use of information technology constitute a sine qua non for achieving sustainable water management.     

农机社会化服务对小麦生产技术效率的影响

目的 在中国土地规模经营和服务规模经营并重推进粮食作物效率提升背景下,进一步探讨农机社会化服务对小麦生产技术效率提升效应的规模异质性具有现实意义。方法 文章使用随机前沿分析和门限回归分析,利用2018年全国6省区小麦种植户经营情况,对农机社会化服务影响小麦生产技术效率及影响效果规模异质性进行研究。结果 农机社会化服务的采用有助于提升小麦生产技术效率;农机社会化服务对小麦生产技术效率存在门限效应,当农户经营规模低于门限值（0.293hm²）时,农机社会化服务对小麦生产技术效率不具有显著影响,跨越门限值后,农机社会化服务对小麦生产技术效率则具有正向影响效应。基于农户适度规模经营的情况下,农机社会化服务对中等规模（0.293hm²＜Area＜3.333hm²）农户的小麦生产技术效率具有显著正向影响。结论 农机社会化服务有助于提升中国小麦种植户技术效率,但受限于农户规模,推进农机社会化服务发展的同时仍然需要推动土地的适度规模经营。