The Adoption of Agricultural Technology - Food Security Group

esearch effort. It may also be important to obtain an estimate of theincreased income for farmers who have adopted the new technology. Suchan estimate will require good data on the variable costs of the technology.Estimates of the benefits of a new technology should be balanced againstpOSSible costs implied by changes in other parts of the farming system (forexample, if a new technology leads to a change from intercropping tomonocropping). The long-term sustainability of a new practice may alsoneed to be examined when considering costs and benefits.If the research program has been planned carefully, with due attention todeveloping technologies appropriate for specific groups of farmers("recommendation domains"), then the adoption study may hold fewsurprises regarding the distribution of the technology. But oftenunexpected or unexplored factors influence the actual distribution of a newtechnology or of its benefits. Although the "average" impact in terms ofyield or income gains may be impressive, which farmers are able to takeadvantage of the change? Are many excluded from using the newtechnology? Answers to these questions may be sought by ensuring thatthe adoption survey covers a wide range of farmers, placing specialemphasis on the resources available to farmers. Thus the survey shouldseek to assess the experiences of larger- and smaller-scale farmers, thosewho have access to credit and those who do not, and so forth. These factorsare discussed in more detail in Chapter 3.More complex questions may also be asked about the distributionalimpacts of a new technology. Not only is it important to understand how anew technology is used by different types of farmers, it is also important tosee how the benefits of the technology are distributed among varioussectors of the population. Is it farmers or consumers who gain most? Tn thefarming sector, how is the extra income divided among landowners,tenants, and laborers? Do male farmers gain at the expense of femalefarmers? Does the technology increase or decrease the demand for labor,and how does that affect the incomes of the poorest sectors of thepopulation? An example of this kind of analysis is shown in Box 11. Theanswers to most of these questions go beyond the basic adoption studydescribed in this manual, but such adoption studies are a necessary part ofresearch on the distributional impacts of technological change. Furtherdiscussion of these issues can be found in Barker, Herdt, and Rose (1985,Chapter 10) and Lipton with Longhurst (1989).-16