Download or read book Essays on Technology Adoption in Crop Farming written by and published by . This book was released on 2019 with total page 136 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Essays on Precision Agriculture Technology Adoption and Agricultural Cooperative Mergers written by Eric Kwesi Makafui Ofori and published by . This book was released on 2022 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Understanding how differences in precision agriculture (PA) technology adoption may impact crop productivity is important for assisting farmers to make more informed adoption choices. Also, examining if strategic alliances amongst agricultural cooperatives can provide benefits to farmers is relevant. This dissertation therefore consists of three essays that provide insights into how PA technology adoption choices may improve crop productivity, and how mergers or other forms of strategic alliances amongst agricultural cooperatives can provide additional benefits to cooperative-member farms. The first study of this dissertation evaluates potential crop productivity improvements that can be attributed to adoption of PA technologies. In this study, treatment effect estimators are incorporated into a stochastic frontier analysis framework to estimate the impact of PA technology adoption on technical inefficiency of corn production. Empirical estimations utilize data from the Kansas Farm Management Association consisting of 444 farms between 2002 to 2015. This includes non-adopters and adopters of two PA technologies: precision soil sampling (PSS) and variable rate technology (VRT). The sample data is pre-processed by using propensity score matching to account for potential underlying differences between adopters and non-adopters that may have spillover effects on the outcome of interest, technical inefficiency. Results suggest that adoption of PA technologies had no statistically significant impact on reducing technical inefficiency of corn production, in the presence of some degree of covariate imbalance. In the first study, differences amongst adopters are not considered, that is whether farms adopt PSS only or both PSS and VRT. However, estimates of technical inefficiency reductions may be masked by differences in adoption choices. The results of the first study therefore inspire the second study of this dissertation. The second study, accounts for differences in PA technology adoption choices by grouping adopters as either adopters of PSS only or adopters of both PSS and VRT. The methodology and data of the first study are adapted to estimate the impact of PA technology adoption on technical inefficiency of corn production under each adoption choice. In the presence of some degree of covariate imbalance, results suggest that, regardless of adoption choice (i.e., whether farms adopt PSS only or both PSS and VRT), adoption had no statistically significant effect on reducing technical inefficiency of corn production. The third study of this dissertation examines potential gains that agricultural cooperatives may accrue from mergers. An ex-ante data envelopment analysis approach is employed. Empirical estimations utilize data from CoBank, consisting of 749 midwestern agricultural cooperative observations from 2011 to 2015. Potential overall merger effects are decomposed into learning effects, scope effects, and scale effects. Findings show that generally, there are non-trivial overall potential gains from mergers. Overall merger gains are primarily driven by improvements due to learning effects and scope effects. Scale effect on the other hand tends to work against all merger combinations, with higher associated revenue reductions (or cost increases) for mergers between larger sized cooperatives compared to mergers between smaller cooperatives.

Download or read book Essays on Learning and Technology Adoption written by Bruce Peter McWilliams and published by . This book was released on 1995 with total page 164 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Three Essays on Technology Adoption and the Roles of Off farm Labor Human Capital and Risk in Contemporary US Agriculture written by Hiroki Uematsu and published by . This book was released on 2012 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Essays on the Microeconomics of Technology Adoption with Application to Ethiopian Agriculture written by Kassahun Tadesse Melesse and published by . This book was released on 2015 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The dissertation explores the role of land reforms and agricultural extension in promoting technology adoption in the Ethiopian agricultural sector. The first two essays of the dissertation are devoted to examining the role of property rights institutions in promoting technology adoption. In the second chapter, we provide a theoretical framework which shows that an important mechanism through which improved property rights influences technology adoption is by altering the optimal contractual arrangements economic agents choose, but the magnitude of this impact depends partly on the degree of credit market imperfections prevailing in the economy. We analyze this in the agricultural sector in a developing country setting and develop a model which predicts that by reducing both tenure insecurity and transaction costs, credible land title reforms provide incentives for farmers to move towards contracts that encourage the adoption of chemical fertilizers. In the third chapter, we estimate the impact of improved land rights on farmers' choice of land and labor contracts and technology adoption using panel data from Ethiopia, which introduced legislation that gave farmers perpetual land use rights aimed at improving their tenure security. The empirical approach allows us to empirically disentangle the direct impact of improved tenure security on technology adoption, by reducing the risk of expropriation, from its indirect impact through its effect on the optimal choice of land and labor contracts. The econometric results demonstrate improved property rights in Ethiopia have their greatest effect on the adoption of chemical fertilizers by transforming the agrarian contractual structure. The fourth chapter evaluates the impact of the Ethiopian agricultural extension program in promoting the use of chemical fertilizers among farmers by employing propensity score matching and inverse probability weighting methods. These methods help us arrive at credible estimates of the impact of the Ethiopian agricultural extension program by carefully handling endogeneity problems that have bedeviled prior research aimed at estimating the impact of extension programs on technology adoption and overall farm performance in several developing economies. Our empirical results show that the Ethiopian extension program increases both the likelihood of chemical fertilizer adoption and enhances the intensity of fertilizer use by farmers, but the impact is heterogeneous across households.

Download or read book Essays on Agricultural Technology Adoption Value Chain Development and Intra household Decision making written by Cansin Arslan and published by . This book was released on 2020 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: While considerable progress has been made over the last 30 years in poverty reduction, about ten percent of the people in the world still live in extreme poverty. It is the field of economics that formulate theories, devise methods, and make empirical analyses that inform policies and practices to reduce poverty and improve welfare in developing countries. This dissertation consists of three essays at the intersection of development and agricultural economics. Each essay has its own introduction, methods, results, and conclusion section. The essays share a common ground in that they are bas...

Download or read book Essays on Soil Conservation Social Capital and Technology Adoption written by Wilfred Nyangena and published by Goteborg University. This book was released on 2006 with total page 130 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Essays on Precision Agriculture Technology Adoption and Risk Management written by Jean-Marc A. Gandonou and published by . This book was released on 2005 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Three Essays on Technology Choice in Rainfed Cereal livestock Systems in Morocco written by Nicholas Paul Magnan and published by . This book was released on 2010 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this dissertation I address (i) a large, but until now not quantified, barrier to adopting certain agricultural technologies facing cereal-livestock farmers, and (ii) a largely overlooked benefit to rainfed farmers of adopting one of these technologies. While the three essays in this dissertation focus on no-till agriculture, the theory and empirics I present have broader applications. In the first essay I use a household model to estimate the shadow value of crop stubble, a nonmarket byproduct of cereal production. Stubble is an important source of livestock feed, and the full opportunity cost of adopting no-till, or of switching from cereal to cash crops, must include the value of stubble forgone under these technologies. Using household data from Morocco I find that in a normal rainfall year stubble makes up one-third of the total value of feed used by farmers in the sample and over one-fifth of the total value of cereal production-- more than the cost-savings offered by no-till. In the second essay I address the implications of common stubble grazing on property rights enforcement and technology adoption. The introduction of a technology such as no-till that presents an alternative use for stubble which could increase its value enough so some farmers enforce property rights over the resource, making it more costly for others to forego using stubble as feed in order to adopt the technology. I present a theoretical model and a simulation calibrated with data from Morocco to explain the emergence of property rights enforcement and interdependence of technology adoption between farmers. In the third essay I demonstrate that rainfed farmers facing the risk of catastrophic drought extract a quasi-option value from technologies that delay input use, which I argue include no-till. Using household data from Morocco I investigate the timing of crop abandonment. I then present a two period simulation model that demonstrates how no-till generates a quasi-option value to flexible farmers under drought risk. I find that under the status quo 14 percent of the total cost-savings of using no-till is derived from quasi-option value.

Download or read book Technology and Economic Development written by Travis James Lybbert and published by . This book was released on 2004 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Agricultural Development in Asia and Africa written by Jonna P. Estudillo and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2023 with total page 397 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This Open Access book explores the multifaceted nature of agricultural and rural development in Asia and examines the extent to which the Asian experience is being replicated in contemporary Africa. This volume compiles the works of top scholars who provided analyses and evidences from household-level surveys collected for many years in several parts of Asia and Africa. The most important finding presented in this book is that African agricultural development has evolved following the pathways of Asian agricultural development. The common pathways are borrowed technology from abroad and adaptive research in rice farming; secured property rights on natural resources; adoption of ICTs; investments in human capital, including training; and launching of the high-value agriculture. In both continents, agricultural development started in the crop sector, which had a strong tendency to induce the dynamic development of other sectors in rural areas. [Resumen de la editorial]

Download or read book Essays on Extension Education and Farmers Adoption of Oilseeds Crops and Conservation Practices written by Graciela Cristina Andrango Quimbiulco and published by . This book was released on 2016 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Adoption of technological improvements are crucial to increase agricultural productiviy to help reduce poverty by obtaining higher farm incomes due to higher productivity and lower production costs. However, the introduction of new agricultural technologies has not always been successful or had diffuse adoption. Factors that determine farmers adoption decisions are: 1) farm and farmers' characteristics; 2) technology attributes, and 3) the farming objective. Understanding these factors and how they affect adoption of new technologies on the farm is crucial to assure higher levels of adoption. The over all purpose of this thesis is to explore the adoption process of new technologies and practices by farmers. This is accomplished through three essays to meet the objectives of the thesis. The purpose of the first essay was to evaluate whether or not farmers in the western U.S. are willing to grow specialized oilseed crops that could be used for certified hydrotreated renewable jet (HRJ) fuel production and incorporate them into existing wheat-based production systems under contract. Results indicate that providing oilseeds crops and contracts with desired attributes and features would positively affect farmers' decisions to incorporate oilseed crops into their rotation system. Preferred seed and contract attributes that may affect a farmer adoption decision differ across different geographic regions of the U.S. The second essay focused on identifying factors that impact participation and farmers' decision to adopt soil conservation and fertilization management practices for cassava producers in Thailand and Vietnam. Results indicate that asset ownership and cassava yield positively influence participation. Adoption of new practices was positively linked to farmers participation in training activities, use of fish ponds (as a measure of alternative agricultural practices), presence of a nearby starch factory, and slope of the land. Finally, the purpose of the third essay was to examine extension educators' characteristics that affect educators' selection decision of outreach methods in the U.S. This essay examines the diffusion process that impacts adoption of best management practices by farmers. The decision extension educators make for selecting a teaching method is affected by the relationship between the objectives of the learning process and the characteristics of the teaching method.

Download or read book Agricultural Technology Adoption and the Provision of Public Goods written by Abbie Annis Turiansky and published by . This book was released on 2016 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Agricultural technologies are widely promoted as a tool for poverty alleviation in countries where the rural poor rely primarily on agriculture. This dissertation considers two related factors that can greatly impact agricultural productivity: technology choice and the role of natural resource management in agriculture. Water and the infrastructure to manage water effectively are inputs into agricultural production that can be necessary for farmers to adopt potentially beneficial technologies. I study the introduction of a new agricultural technology that relies on a well-functioning irrigation system, focusing on the household impacts of the technology and possibilities for local farmer-led institutions to provide and manage the irrigation infrastructure. The System of Rice Intensification (SRI) is a rice cultivation method that promises yields far greater than those of the traditional technology. The first essay examines the household impacts of SRI, finding increased yields but failing to detect an impact on either farm profits or household-level income. We do find a small but significant negative impact on self-reported food security, driven primarily by food insecurity during the planting season, when the high cost of implementing SRI may prevent families from being able to purchase enough food. Adoption of the full technology package is low, but farmers exposed to the technology adopt some components of the technology in a form of partial adoption, moving toward SRI-like practices. Farmers exposed to SRI training are also more likely to be able to describe the specifics of their cultivation practices, indicating that the training may have focused attention to farmers' specific techniques. Public goods are often crucial inputs into agriculture, and their availability may be an important factor in farmers' decisions regarding technology choice. When the provision of a public good relies on farmer participation, as is often the case for local irrigation systems, farmers have to make complex decisions regarding technology choice and participation in public goods provision. The second essay explores whether the introduction of SRI, a technology that depends on precise water management, shifts farmers' decisions about their contributions to management of the shared irrigation system. I use public goods experiments, conducted before and after the introduction of SRI, that offered farmers the opportunity to form institutions to manage public goods after several rounds of providing the public goods by voluntary contribution. I find that farmers who adopted the new technology contribute the same amount as non-adopters during the voluntary contribution rounds, but that they were more likely to vote for costly institutions to promote public goods provision when the institutions were offered in the experiment. Informal institutions and norms can play an important role in farmer-led management of public goods, and the development community has focused attention on how such institutions emerge and evolve. The third essay examines whether exposure to the strategic considerations of a collective action dilemma in an experimental setting can change behavior in the real world when they face similar strategic trade-offs. Farmers participated in public goods games framed to mimic the real trade-off they face between private work and participation in the management of shared canals, and over the subsequent planting season, were invited to participate in voluntary canal-cleaning work days. Farmers who participated in the experiments were 69% more likely than the control group to volunteer. The mechanism through which the experiments seem to operate is by shifting participants' expectations of others' contributions to the public good, suggesting that experiments provide a setting in which to learn about one's neighbors and develop common norms of behavior.

Download or read book Technology in Agriculture written by Fiaz Ahmad and published by BoD – Books on Demand. This book was released on 2021-10-13 with total page 538 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Food security is one of the primary themes of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals. In this regard, agricultural engineering is considered the backbone of agriculture, and agricultural mechanization is considered a helpful way to enhance crop yield and farmers’ profitability. Technology in Agriculture presents research in the field of agricultural engineering technologies and applications in agricultural equipment engineering, biosystem engineering, energy systems engineering, and computers in agriculture. It provides an overview of recent advancements in agricultural engineering and examines key aspects of emerging technologies and their applications. In addition, the book explores modern methodologies such as artificial intelligence and machine learning for agricultural mechanization.

Download or read book The Journal of Agricultural Economics Research written by and published by . This book was released on 1990 with total page 48 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Essays on Agriculture and Demography in Developing Countries written by Siyao Jessica Zhu and published by . This book was released on 2019 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This dissertation is composed of three essays that explore agriculture and demography issues in developing countries. The first two chapters investigate smallholders' agricultural technology adoption decisions in Mozambique and Tanzania, respectively. The third chapter examines the impacts of skewed sex ratios in Paraguay. All essays are motivated by the analysis of how individuals' behaviors and decisions are affected by various factors, such as personal characteristics, exogenous treatments and conflicts, and culture norms. To address these topics, both data collected through a field experiment and nationally representative surveys are used, while different methods are applied -- experiment, structural model, and reduced-form analysis. Despite the importance of agriculture sector and the availability of technologies that enhance yields, smallholders in Sub-Saharan Africa persistently use traditional farming methods and face low agricultural productivity. In the first chapter, which is coauthored with Florence Kondylis and Valerie Mueller, we investigate which channels can diffuse and boost adoption of productive farming practices. Specifically, we conduct a large-scale randomized field experiment in Mozambique to measure the impact of augmenting the contact farmer (CF) model with a direct CF training on the diffusion of a new technology. Moving forward with the information transmission and promotion channel research, I examine the rationale behind small-scale farmers' adoption decisions in my second chapter. There is a well-known technology adoption puzzle: Why do African farmers not adopt modern technologies that economists believe should provide higher returns on average, for example fertilizer, and at the same time why do African farmers adopt traditional technologies that economists consider unprofitable, for example intercropping? I build a structural model, estimate it with data from Tanzania, and offer an explanation to this puzzle. The third chapter, which is coauthored with Jennifer Alix-Garcia, Laura Schechter, and Felipe Valencia Caicedo, explores another central theme in the field of development economics, gender. Using the event of the War of the Triple Alliance, we examine both the short-term and the long-term impacts of a temporary variation in sex ratios on the economies, such as the marriage market and labor market performances.

Download or read book HarvestChoice Supporting strategic investment choices in agricultural technology development and adoption written by Koo, Jawoo and published by Intl Food Policy Res Inst. This book was released on 2020-07-13 with total page 12 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: HarvestChoice began in 2006, when detailed and readily accessible data on agriculture, human welfare, and the environment were scarce for Africa South of the Sahara (SSA). Statistics to support agricultural policy and investment decisions in the region were often too coarse—available only at national scale. Since then, technology advances (e.g., remote sensing, geographic information systems, and modeling tools) have enabled rapid data generation.