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Inadequate information on the benefits of and knowledge about innovative agricultural technologies continue to be a major constraint to technology adoption among smallholder farmers in developing countries. The low adoption of new technologies is one of the causes of low productivity and high poverty incidence among smallholder farmers, particularly in Africa. In this paper, I briefly review the literature on social networks and technology diffusion, and argue that the diffusion potential of social networks is underexplored. I then present results from two empirical studies on the impact of social networks on the adoption of improved crop varieties in Ghana and Ethiopia. The results reveal that farmers' peer adoption decisions and experiences, as well as information from trained development agents positively and statistically influence their adoption decisions. I also find that network structural characteristics such as lower segmentation within networks, high credibility of the information, and high effectiveness and efficiency of the amount of information flow tend to improve information acquisition and speed up diffusion of improved crop varieties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the growing attention to technology adoption in the economics literature, knowledge gaps remain regarding why some valuable technologies are rapidly adopted, while others are not. This paper contributes to our understanding of agricultural technology adoption by showing that a focus on yield gains may, in some contexts, be misguided. We study a technology in Ethiopia that has no impact on yields, but that has nonetheless been widely adopted. Using three waves of panel data, we estimate a correlated random coefficient model and calculate the returns to improved chickpea in terms of yields, costs, and profits. We find that farmers' comparative advantage does not play a significant role in their adoption decisions and hypothesize that this is due to the overall high economic returns to adoption, despite the limited yield impacts of the technology. Our results suggest economic measures of returns may be more relevant than increases in yields in explaining technology adoption decisions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Spatially mediated peer effects are increasingly recognized as an important driver of technology adoption. In this paper, we isolate the role of peer effects from environmental factors in the acquisition of groundwater rights for agricultural irrigation in Kansas. We find strong evidence of peer effects influencing farmers' decisions to adopt groundwater irrigation. Using a rich dataset on groundwater rights for the period 1943–2014 and a nearest neighbor peer group definition, we find that one additional neighbor adopting groundwater for irrigation increases groundwater adoption by an average of 0.25 percentage points. We also find that the average marginal effect of one additional peer is reduced by distance and diminishes as the total number of neighbors adopting groundwater increases. Using our model estimates to simulate a counterfactual without peer effects, we find that water rights appropriation stemming from peer effects accounted for about 11 million acre-feet of extraction from the Kansas High Plains Aquifer. This amounts to about three years of typical annual extraction. Our results provide evidence that peer effects can "speed up" resource extraction and can help inform policy makers in designing exploitation control rules. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses studies on the effects of climate variability on crop production and management. It mentions the bad weather conditions in several areas in the U. S. including in the Cedar River in Iowa and in the upper Midwest. Effects of climate variability include the increase in crop prices. Several papers on climate variability and crop management are discussed including on how El Nino Southern Oscillation affect yield distribution of crops. Another paper examines climate stationarity. An overview of the papers is provided.

The article discusses a study on agricultural mechanization in Ghana which was presented at an invited paper session at the 2013 Allied Social Sciences Association annual meeting in San Diego, California. It examines whether the subsidized agricultural mechanization service enterprise centers is attractive for private investors. It looks into the current supply network of services for mechanization, profitability of tractor-hire services and constraints to profitable tractor operation.

The article discusses a study on the use of randomized encouragement designs in the application of agricultural technology adoption which was presented at an invited paper session at the 2013 annual meeting of the Allied Social Sciences Association in San Diego, California. It examines the impacts of the adoption of irrigation on household crop production and constraints affecting uptake of technology adoption.

Many decisions in agriculture are made over combinations of inputs and/or practices that may form a technology system linked through complementarity. The presence of complementarity among producer decisions can have far-reaching implications for market outcomes and for the effectiveness of policies intended to influence them. Identifying complementarity relations, however, is made difficult by the presence of unobserved heterogeneity. Drawing on recent methodological advances, in this paper we develop a test for complementarity between glyphosate tolerant soybeans and conservation tillage that overcomes certain limitations of previous studies. Specifically, we develop a structural discrete choice framework of joint soybean-tillage adoption that explicitly models both complementarity and the correlation induced by unobserved heterogeneity. The model is estimated with a large unbalanced panel of farm-level choices spanning the 1998-2011 period. We find that glyphosate tolerant soybeans and conservation tillage are complementary practices. In addition, our estimation shows that farm operation scale promotes the adoption of both conservation tillage and glyphosate tolerant seed, and that all of higher fuel prices, more droughty conditions, and soil erodibility increase use of conservation tillage. We apply our results to simulate annual adoption rates for both conservation tillage and no-tillage in a scenario without glyphosate tolerant soybeans available as a choice. We find that the adoption of conservation tillage and no-tillage have been about 10% and 20% higher, respectively, due to the advent of glyphosate tolerant soybeans. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Though extension services have long since proved their value to agricultural production and farmer prosperity, their record in sub‐Saharan Africa has been mixed. To study the impact of such programs on farmers' learning about agricultural technologies, we implemented a quasi‐randomized controlled trial and collected detailed panel data among Malawian farmers. Based on those findings, we develop a two‐stage learning framework, in which farmers formulate yield expectations before deciding on how much effort to invest in learning about these processes. Using data centered on farmer beliefs, knowledge, and constraints, we find evidence that beliefs about potential yields hinge on first‐hand and local experience, and that these beliefs significantly impact learning efforts. Consistent with this, we find that farmers who participated in season‐long, farmer‐led demonstration plot cultivation plan to adopt more components of new multi‐component technology, compared to farmers who were invited to attend only field‐day events. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses a case study on the rise of agricultural mechanization services in China which was presented at an invited paper session at the 2013 annual meeting of the Allied Social Sciences Association in San Diego, California. It examines the role of farm mechanization in the rise of China's agricultural output despite the decline in rural population working in agriculture from 1978 to 2010, focusing on the development of farmer-owned enterprises in the Peixian County, Jiangsu.

This article proposes a methodology to measure the characteristics of intermediate products when quality is multidimensional. It uses a general representation of the multioutput technology via directional distance functions and constructs quality indicators based on differences rather than ratios. The quality indicators may be used to evaluate firms' output, taking into account the whole set of quality attributes. The paper explores how aggregate quality may vary with the production level and finds a trade-off between quantity and aggregate quality in wine grapes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There has been much optimism about the potential of information and communication technologies (ICTs) to provide agricultural extension services to remote households. Yet, little is known about how different communication methods fare, and, moreover, whether different segments of the population adopt information communicated via different means equally. We conduct a randomized controlled trial comparing the effectiveness of three ICTs—radio, voice response messages, and a smartphone app—with traditional extension training in communicating fertilizer management practices across four districts in rural Nepal. We find that farmers in the smartphone app and the extension training programs are on average 8.4 and 13 percentage points more likely to adopt top dressing fertilizer practices compared to control farmers, statistically significant at the 1% and 5% levels, respectively. Farmers in the smartphone app treatment achieve the highest agronomic literacy test scores, 7.8 percentage points higher than the control, statistically significant at the 1% level. In contrast, farmers receiving radio or voice response messages were not more likely to adopt the same fertilizer recommendations nor show improved specific or general agronomic knowledge relative to control farmers. Our results suggest that smartphone apps are more cost effective at inducing farmer knowledge and technology adoption than extension trainings. Heterogeneous treatment effects, however, reveal that a targeted ICT approach may be more effective in disseminating extension advice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Stigmatization of water and food products can constrain markets and prevent the implementation of scientifically safe solutions to environmental problems, such as water scarcity. Recycled water can be a cost‐effective, dependable, and safe solution to water shortages. However, consumers generally either require a large reduction in price to purchase products made with recycled water or reject such products outright. If emerging sustainable agricultural technologies, such as recycled water, are to be used to address growing water shortages worldwide, policymakers, water managers, and industry stakeholders must identify effective strategies for mitigating the stigma associated with recycled water. Using field experiments involving 1420 adult participants, we test the effectiveness of two stigma‐mitigating techniques. We also demonstrate a novel twist to the collection of representative samples in non‐hypothetical field experimental settings and then compare the results to a more traditional field experiment that recruited participants at large public gatherings. The analysis of these two different samples suggests a common finding: passing recycled water through a natural barrier, such as an aquifer, removes the stigma consumers would otherwise attach to it. We also find that the trophic level an organism occupies in the food chain influences stigmatizing behavior. The greater the steps in the food chain between an organism and the use of recycled water, the less it is stigmatized by consumers. These results have important implications for efforts to promote large‐scale potable and non‐potable water recycling projects and the use of recycled water in the agricultural industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Misalignment of quality incentives along value chains may limit quality and therefore function as a barrier to smallholder participation in modern value chains. This article uses survey and administrative data to study how individual quality incentives provided by private actors can help smallholders to improve milk quality. By matching farmers on baseline characteristics, I find that individual quality incentives increased the compositional quality of milk quickly after its introduction. Together with physical inputs and training, individual quality incentives also increased the hygienic quality of milk. Decreasing hygienic quality over time by treated farmers suggests that the impact of the intervention decreased over time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Agricultural advisory services generally rely on interpersonal knowledge transfers by agricultural extension agents who visit farmers to provide information. This approach is not always effective and has proved hard to scale sustainably, particularly in highly dispersed smallholder farming systems. Information and communication technologies (ICTs) have been advanced as a promising way to overcome many of the problems associated with conventional agricultural extension. We evaluate the effectiveness of an ICT‐mediated approach to deliver agricultural information in a field experiment conducted among small‐scale maize farmers in eastern Uganda. Three complementary technologies designed to address both informational and behavioral constraints to technical change are considered. First, we investigate the effectiveness of audiovisual messages (video) as a means of delivering information on input use and improved maize management practices to farmers. Second, we quantify the additional impact of complementing video with an interactive voice response (IVR) service. Third, we estimate the incremental effect of time‐sensitive short message services (SMS) messages designed to remind farmers about applying key practices at specific points during the season. We find that households that were shown a short video on how to become better maize farmers were performing significantly better on a knowledge test, more likely to apply recommended practices, and more likely to use fertilizer than households that did not view the video. These same households also reported maize yields about 10.5% higher than those that did not view the video. We find little evidence of an incremental effect of the IVR service or SMS reminders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The conventional wisdom that technological advances in seed breeding and genetic modification of corn traits have lowered yield risk has recently been challenged by research that argues that the converse is true. The implications of this research have been applied to models of climate change and have led to the conclusion that these advances have actually increased agronomic risk, such that climate change is asserted to raise important concerns regarding the stability and viability of agricultural output in the future. In a large body of empirical work, the argument is based upon assertions that corn yields have become more sensitive to weather stresses. This increased sensitivity has coincided with the introduction of a variety of genetically engineered (GE) crops in the 1990s and 2000s. We use corn yields and data from the US federal crop insurance program to evaluate these claims. An initial examination of yield responses to droughts in 1988 and 2012 suggests more robust yields in the latter period, in spite of very comparable weather stresses. We next consider side‐by‐side data collected under the Biotech Endorsement (BE) to the federal crop insurance program between 2008 and 2011. This endorsement provided substantial discounts for growers using certain GE hybrids, reflecting policymakers' beliefs that these hybrids had lower yield risk. We find that risk, as measured by the rate of indemnities paid per units insured, was significantly lower for crops insured under the BE. We also find that the difference in risk tends to be greater when growing conditions are less favorable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article features David Hennessey, editor of the periodical "American Journal of Agricultural Economics." It states that the interest of Hennessey in agricultural technologies and economics started in his youth in rural Southeast Ireland, where his father has worked as a public veterinary health official and operated a cattle and barley farm. It says that the contributions of Hennessey were in the field of risk management policy, such as in revenue insurance.

We estimate the effects of agricultural technological progress on cropland expansion at various geographical resolutions, from the country level to the world as a whole, while formally accounting for the international interdependence of national supply responses. Evidence for these effects has thus far been scant, contributing to polarized perceptions about the potential for improving agricultural technologies as a means to slow down deforestation. We find that, in most countries of the world, growth in total factor productivity (TFP) is either uncorrelated or is positively associated with cropland expansion. Yet worldwide TFP growth have been an important source of global land savings. The divergence between the country-level and the global results is explained by the changes in production patterns as countries interact in international markets. Our preferred point estimate of the elasticity of global cropland to global TFP growth is -0.34. Moreover, we estimate that satisfying food demand from 1991 to 2010 without observed TFP growth would have necessitated an additional 173 million hectares, or close to 10% of the area covered by tropical rain forests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article addresses the question of whether subsidizing an entirely new agricultural technology for smallholder farmers can aid its adoption early in the diffusion process. Based on a theoretical framework for technology adoption under subjective uncertainty, we implemented a randomized field experiment among 1,200 smallholders in Uganda to estimate the extent to which subsidizing an improved grain storage bag crowds-out or crowds-in commercial buying of the technology. The empirical results show that on average, subsidized households are more likely to buy an additional bag at commercial prices relative to the households with no subsidy who are equally aware of the technology. This suggests that under certain circumstances, such as when there is uncertainty about the effectiveness of a new agricultural technology, and the private sector market for the technology is weak or nascent, a one-time use of subsidy to build awareness and reduce risk can help generate demand for the new technology and thus crowd-in commercial demand for it. In this context, a subsidy can allow farmers to experiment with the technology and learn from the experience before investing in it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the impact that misreporting adoption status has on the identification and estimation of causal effects on productivity. In particular, by comparing measurement error-ridden self-reported adoption data with measurement-error-free DNA-fingerprinted adoption data, we investigate the extent to which such errors bias the causal effects of adoption on productivity. Taking DNA-fingerprinted adoption data as a benchmark, we find 25% "false negatives" and 10% "false positives" in farmers' responses. Our results show that misreporting of adoption status is not exogenous to household characteristics, and produces a bias of about 22 percentage points in the productivity impact of adoption. Ignoring inherent behavioral adjustments of farmers based on perceived adoption status has a bias of 13 percentage points. The results of this article underscore the crucial role that correct measurement of adoption plays in designing policy interventions that address constraints to technology adoption in agriculture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We assess the responsiveness of Senegalese onion producers to their knowledge of expected changes in product market conditions, whereby onions would no longer be sold based on volume but rather on weight and with labeling certifying quality. A village-level randomized information campaign on the upcoming introduction of these reforms induced significant investments by farmers into qualityenhancing inputs. Delays in the actual introduction of scales enabled us to rigorously identify positive price effects from these investments. Our results point to the importance of farmers' expectations regarding the improved functioning of product markets in triggering technology adoption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article seeks to address an old and recurring theme in development economics--the slow adoption of new technologies by farmers in many developing countries. We explore a somewhat novel explanation for this puzzle--the link between market access and the incentives to adopt a new technology when there are non-convexities. We develop a theoretical model to guide the empirical analysis that uses spatially disaggregated agricultural production data from the International Food Policy Research Institute and Living Standards Measurement Study survey data for Nigeria. We estimate the impact of transport costs on crop production, adoption of modern technologies, and the differential impact on returns of modern versus traditional farmers. To overcome the limitation of data availability on travel costs for much of Africa, we combine road survey data and GIS roads networks to generate the most thorough and accurate road network available, to our knowledge. Using these data and the Highway Development Management Model (HDM-4), we compute minimum travel costs from each location to the market. Consistent with our theory we find that transportation costs are critical in determining technology choices, with a greater responsiveness among farmers who adopt modern technologies, and at times a perverse (negative) response to lower transport costs among those who employ more traditional techniques. In sum, we present compelling evidence that the constraints to the adoption of modern technologies and access to markets are interconnected, and so should be targeted jointly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates the sources of profitability change at the farm level, by farm size and specialization, with an application to a sample of 256 farms in Kansas from 1993 to 2010. Using the Lowe index method, profitability change is decomposed into changes in total factor productivity and terms of trade. The nonparametric data envelopment analysis method is used to further decompose total factor productivity into technical change and different measures of output-oriented efficiency change. Finally, the system-Generalized Methods of Moments approach is employed to investigate the dynamic relationship between different components of productivity on farm profitability. Results indicate that profitability change is mainly driven by total factor productivity change. The main source of total factor productivity change is technical change. The upward-shifting frontier results in declining technical efficiency. Results point towards the need to support research and development without ignoring efforts to encourage the uptake of existing technologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) in the social sciences are typically not double-blind, so participants know they are “treated” and will adjust their behavior accordingly. Such effort responses complicate the assessment of impact. To gauge the potential magnitude of effort responses we implement a conventional RCT and double-blind trial in rural Tanzania, and randomly allocate modern and traditional cowpea seed varieties to a sample of farmers. Effort responses can be quantitatively important—for our case they explain the entire “treatment effect on the treated” as measured in a conventional economic RCT. Specifically, harvests are the same for people who know they received the modern seeds and for people who did not know what type of seeds they got; however, people who knew they had received the traditional seeds did much worse. Importantly, we also find that most of the behavioral response is unobserved by the analyst, or at least not readily captured using coarse, standard controls. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The yield potential of a set of improved rice management practices, known as the System of Rice Intensification (SRI), has attracted much attention. Yet we know surprisingly little about SRI's socio-economic impact. Using data from Indonesia in 2009, this study assesses the impact of SRI on household incomes and child schooling. We find that SRI generates significant estimated yield gains. However, because SRI induces a reallocation of family labor from non-farm to farm, SRI users enjoy no household income gains. Despite the increased labor demand for farming, we find no evidence that SRI has a child labor effect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses a study on agricultural mechanization in Nigeria which was presented at an invited session at the 2013 Allied Social Sciences Association in San Diego, California. It focuses on the impact of mechanization, such as the use of tractors, on income of farm households and productivity of small-holder semisubsistence farmers growing staple crops such as maize, cassava and yam. It assesses the importance of the study on mechanization policy for sub-Sahara African countries.

The article demonstrates trait-based approach to study technology adoption, by empirically analyzing how the valuation of technological traits may depend on factors beyond standard price considerations. It explains in detail the empirical model used to demonstrate the approach, by giving the option to farmers to utilize drought-tolerance (DT) trait that is embedded in the seed.

This article proposes a proactive approach for analyzing agricultural adaptation to climate change wherein agricultural production technologies are regarded as potential targets of research and development (R&D) efforts. We develop a structural land-use model wherein farmers maximize profit by allocating their land among crop-technology bundles. Proactive R&D directions are derived by identifying the technological attributes through which climate change reduces overall agricultural profitability, despite farmers reallocating their land into bundles. We find that in Israel, long-term losses stem from increases in crops' input requirements and changes in the inter- and intra-annual distribution of precipitations. Therefore, we identify these vulnerable points as the main potential targets of further R&D efforts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Can the availability of poorly-designed government insurance alter technology adoption decisions? A theoretical model of technology adoption and insurance incentive effects for a high- and low-risk technology is developed and explored empirically using a unique dataset of skip-row agronomic trial data. A multivariate nonparametric resampling technique is developed, which augments the trial data with a larger dataset of conventional yields to improve estimation efficiency. Skip-row adoption is found to increase mean yields and reduce risk in areas prone to drought. RMA insurance rules have incentive-distorting impacts which disincentivize skip-row adoption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article develops the conceptual and empirical foundations for a parsimonious, generic modeling approach to multi-dimensional (i.e., economic, environmental and social) impact assessments of agricultural technologies and environmental change. Joint distributions between technology adoption and outcome variables are characterized, and used to analyze the selection effects of adoption on a general class of impact indicators. The approach is implemented with a generic model that can be parameterized with low-order moments of outcome variables. A case study of adoption of a high-yielding maize variety in Kenya illustrates the model’s use and confirms theoretical results. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article presents a study on the price of the ecosystem services and how it affects biofuel production, land use, and food prices. It uses the Emissions Prediction and Policy Analysis (EPPA) model and the Global Trade Analysis Project (GTAP) economic data. Results show that the increase of biofuel demand will lead to increased carbon dioxide emission and the rising of land prices and agricultural technology will result to higher food prices.

The article focuses on a study concerning the regional production pattern and supply of cellulosic biofuel feedstocks. It mentions two objectives of the study, such as the examination of the viable supply of agricultural biomass and the regional production pattern of various spatial mix and cellulosic feedstocks. Study shows that biomass production of 617-923 million metric tons (MMT) can be made by 2013 at 140 dollars per MT depending on bioenergy crop cost and residue collection technology.

The article reports on catastrophic risk modeling in crop insurance. Crop insurance coverage are more difficult to analyze due to weather variability. Although technology has aided in increasing crop yields and recovery, catastrophic weather including floods and droughts can drain insurance companies. The article examines how catastrophic risk modeling can be used to help insurance companies prepare in the event of catastrophic weather. The study uses crop insurance exposure information from 2007. An overview of the study is provided.

We develop a monopolistic competition model to investigate effects of international technological convergence on factor rewards, output composition, and welfare. Comparative static analysis indicates technological convergence improves the follower's—but impairs the leader's—international competitiveness. The leader's welfare improves unambiguously; the follower's welfare depends on the relative strength of convergence's income and terms-of-trade effects. We use data from seventeen food industries in thirty countries, 1993–2001, to test these analytical predictions. Evidence of convergence is found in thirteen of seventeen industries. Convergence lifts followers' relative wages and global value-added shares. Followers benefit from convergence's positive income effect. Leaders benefit from higher terms of trade. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The unequal distribution of agricultural land is often cited as a source of inefficiency in agriculture. Previous cross-country studies of agricultural productivity differences, though, have not considered land inequality. This article addresses this issue by using cross-country data on inequality in operational holdings of agricultural land from Deininger and Squire (1998) . In an estimation of an agricultural production function, the Gini coefficient for land holdings is found to have a significant negative relationship with productivity. This is consistent with the existence of heterogeneity in productivity by farm size within countries. A one standard deviation drop in the Gini coefficient implies an increase in productivity of 8.5%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The European Union has been relatively cautious about using biotechnology in food production. A label regime combined with the right of individual member states to ban introduction of new genetically modified (GM) strains means that GM food products in effect are banned in many countries. We show how it is possible to empirically test whether a ban can be motivated by reference to potential negative externalities. This is followed up by results from a choice experiment. We cannot reject the hypothesis of equal WTP for a ban and a labeling scheme. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We propose a theoretical framework to analyze the conditions under which a farmer facing production uncertainty (due to a possible water shortage) and incomplete information will adopt a more efficient irrigation technology. A reduced form of this model is empirically estimated using a sample of 265 farms located in Crete, Greece. The empirical results suggest that farmers choose to adopt the new technology in order to hedge against production risk. In addition, we show that the farmer's human capital also plays a significant role in the decision to adopt modern, more efficient irrigation equipment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Food system regulators often decide whether to ban existing practices or approve new technologies without conclusive scientific evidence on possible damage and knowing that resolution is likely in the future. In a model with three decision points and stochastic resolution of uncertainty, we study interactions between expected losses due to regulation and information availability when a regulator is deciding on an early reversible ban and on a later reversible ban. Adjustment costs create inertia concerning intermediate signals such that earlier decisions are not overturned, and also a bias against imposing an early ban. The prospect of more later-stage information can increase or decrease the incentive to ban early, but research decreases the incentive to ban early. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reported rates of return to agricultural R&D are generally high, but they are likely to be biased, particularly because of attribution problems—mismatching research benefits with costs. The importance of attribution biases is illustrated here with new evidence for Brazil. During 1981–2003, varietal improvements in upland rice, edible beans, and soybeans yielded benefits of $14.8 billion in present value (1999 prices) terms. Attributing all of the benefits to Embrapa, a public research corporation accounting for more than half of Brazil's agricultural R&D spending, the benefit-cost ratio would be 78:1. Under alternative attribution rules, the ratio drops to 16:1. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the empirical evidence on genetically modified (GM) crop adoption and its impact on developing countries. According to the article, the first GM crops were officially commercialized in the United States in 1995, by 2004, GM crops were already grown by more than eight million farmers in 17 countries on a total area of 81 million hectares. According to experts, this is the fastest diffusion of any new crop technology in the history of humankind. The article also analyzed adoption constraints and briefly discussed some policy implications.

The article examines technology adoption trends in intensive post-Green Revolution systems, focusing mainly on the irrigated cereals-based systems of Asia, where the Green Revolution has had its greatest impact. According to the authors, major changes have occurred following the Green Revolution, these changes include the rise in the average yields achieved by farmers, the continuous replacement of old modern varieties by new modern varieties and the expansion of intensively cropped area. The authors also discussed how technical change continues to play an important role in sustaining productivity growth in these systems.

The article focuses on the key factors influencing the adoption of sustainable agricultural technologies and natural resource management practices in developing countries. The author also identifies several key characteristics of systems which help explain observed patterns of adoption, and which recent research has suggested as critical limitations to their diffusion. Investments and policies needed to improve the dissemination and adoption of sustainable agriculture and natural resource management technologies, practices and systems are also discussed.

This article determines the contribution of recent European Union agricultural policy reforms on the use of pesticides. Our theoretical model extends the multioutput generalization of the Lichtenberg–Zilberman damage control technology model developed by Chambers and Lichtenberg . Our empirical analysis uses farm-level data for a sample of French farms. Results suggest that price effects on the use of pesticides are always more elastic than area payment effects. This indicates that policy reforms consisting of a reduction in price supports in favor of area payments, may reduce application of crop protection inputs. Such policy changes, which represent a certain degree of decoupling, took place under the 1992 Common Agricultural Policy reforms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A framework is developed for examining price and welfare effects of the introduction of genetically modified (GM) products. In the short run, non-GM grain generally becomes another identity-preserved product. However, more profound market effects are observed under some reasonable parameterizations. When calibrated to reflect the U.S. corn market, introducing GM technology increases aggregate welfare over a wide range of scenarios, unless the corresponding production cost savings are small and consumers are seriously concerned about GM products. The possibility that GM technology may reduce aggregate welfare is interesting because the model assumes rational agents and does not include regulatory constraints. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examine the welfare impact of different intellectual property protection (IPP) regimes in private sector seed research and development (R&D). We take into account the period after expiration of legal IPP, and require simultaneous equilibrium in markets for R&D, seeds, and final product. Optimal IPP is remarkably insensitive to alternative parameterizations, except for R&D productivity. Results suggest that optimal IPP is greater than IPP in the U.S. seed corn market, but lower than the IPP that could be attained with genetic use restriction technologies. Optimal IPP is much higher than IPP achieved under open-pollinated crops or where legal IPP is limited. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One challenge to estimating the parameters of a technology adoption model is that technology is selected jointly with land allocation. The article estimates a nested logit model of technology and crop choices that accounts for unobserved correlation among decisions. Estimation is conducted with a data set of adoptions, in contrast to the more common approach of using cross-section observations of existing technologies. Estimation results support the choice of a nesting structure as opposed to a more standard multinomial logit model. Adoption of precision irrigation technology is shown to be more sensitive to financial incentives affecting input price and technology cost than suggested by previous studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Beefpacking underwent a dramatic transformation in the 1970s and 1980s, as plants got much larger and industry concentration rose dramatically. We use individual Census Bureau plant records to analyze the sources of the transformation. We find that there were modest but extensive scale economies in packing plants, covering the full range of plant sizes, and that such economies became more important throughout the period of the study. As production shifted to larger plants, we estimate that the industry's aggregate processing costs fell by 35.3% by 2002, compared to what they would have been without consolidation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The recent literature on agricultural technology adoption shows that diffusion of new technologies varies significantly across space and time. Furthermore, puzzles exist about why some seemingly profitable technologies are not adopted, especially in livestock production. We employ a hazard or duration function to explain diffusion of crossbred-cow technology in a unique sample of Tanzania farmers. A farmer's adoption of crossbred technology depends positively on the proximity of his farm to other users, on his schooling, and on his access to credit and contact with extension agents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We develop a water allocation and irrigation technology adoption model under the prior appropriation doctrine with asymmetric information among heterogeneous farmers and between farmers and water authorities. We find that adverse selection reduces the adoption of modern irrigation technology. We also show that even with asymmetric information, incentives for water trade exist and lead to additional technology adoption with gains to all parties. This suggests that under asymmetric information, a thin secondary market improves the allocation of water resources and induces additional adoption of modern irrigation technologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We introduce a method for properly attributing observed productivity and risk changes among new production methods, farmers, and plots by controlling for farmer and plot heterogeneity. Results from Madagascar show that the new system of rice intensification (SRI) is indeed a superior technology. Although about half of the observed productivity gains appear due to farmer characteristics rather than SRI itself, the technology generates the estimated average output gains of more than 84%. The increased estimated yield risk associated with SRI would nonetheless make it unattractive to many farmers within the standard range of relative risk aversion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]