Contents & Foreword, Characterizing And ... - IRRI books

mining whether or not modern varieties will be grown in a particular field. The effectof farm size is positive, indicating that, for a given set of conditions, large farmers aremore likely to adopt modern varieties. As discussed by Feder et al (1985), farm sizemay be a proxy for several factors such as wealth status, extent of risk aversion,financial capability to acquire complementary inputs such as fertilizers, and access toinformation and technology. Operators of large farms are better placed in all theseaspects; hence, a greater adoption of modern varieties. An increase in farm size by 1ha raises the probability of adoption of modern varieties by approximately 4%. Althoughland reform to redistribute land may be justified on various grounds, the adoptionof modern varieties could decline if land redistribution is not accompanied byimproved access to technology and credit by small farmers. Farmer age is negativelycorrelated with adoption, indicating that younger farmers may be more enterprisingand more willing to experiment with modern varieties than older farmers. Householdswith more years of education are more likely to adopt modern varieties. Despitethe statistical significance of these two farmer attributes, the associated marginal probabilitiesare quite small, indicating the limited relevance of these variables for technologytargeting. The probability of adoption is 10% higher in irrigated fields than inrainfed fields, other things remaining the same. The positive and significant coefficientof time trend indicates that adoption has increased over time. The coefficient ofthe dummy variable for uplands is statistically significant at the 10% level (but not atthe 5% level), indicating some weak preference of farmers for growing modern varietiesin upland field types. Soil type did not have a statistically significant effect. Interms of the size of the marginal effect on the adoption of modern varieties, irrigationhas by far the most dominant effect.DiscussionThe results of the study show that the variability of plot-level yield and net returns ofrice in the study villages is high even in Mungeshpur, where rice is now grown mostlyunder irrigated conditions. In Itgaon, where irrigation is more limited, the variabilityof rice yield and area over time is quite high. Although agricultural researchers havefocused their energy on addressing the problem of yield variability, area variability inrainfed environments can often be an important source of production variability. Technologiesthat help stabilize rice area planted can help reduce variability in rice production.One of the major causes of area variability is failure in timely crop establishment.Varieties that can be established late and crop management technologies thatfacilitate rapid establishment when environmental conditions are most appropriateare needed to reduce the effect of area variability.One of the major ex ante strategies to deal with risk in rice production is cropdiversification. The coefficient of variation of income from crops grown during therainy season was found to be inversely related to the extent of crop diversification inItgaon. In addition, crop diversification increased during years of low and/or laterains at the beginning of the cropping season. Although further expansion of tubewellirrigation is likely to reduce the importance of crop diversification as a risk-reducing334 Singh et al