Seed Market Privatisation and Farmers’ Access to Crop Technologies: The Case of Hybrid Pearl Millet Adoption in India |
| |
| Authors: | Ira Matuschke Matin Qaim |
| |
| Affiliation: | Ira Matuschke is based in the Department of Agricultural Economics and Social Sciences, University of Hohenheim, 70593 Stuttgart, Germany. E‐mail: for correspondence. Matin Qaim is based in the Department of Agricultural Economics and Rural Development, Georg‐August‐University of Goettingen, 37073 Goettingen, Germany. The authors thank two anonymous reviewers and the editor for their valuable comments. The financial support by the German Research Foundation (DFG) is gratefully acknowledged. |
| |
| Abstract: | 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. |
| |
| Keywords: | Adoption duration analysis hybrid seeds India pearl millet seed market liberalisation C41 O33 Q16 |
|
|
