Social Capital and Agricultural Technology Adoption among Ethiopian Farmers

Abstract

Despite the recent efforts to increase agricultural productivity in Ethiopia, food insecurity remains a major challenge in the country. Improving smallholders´ productivity requires the adoption of suitable agricultural technologies and practices. Previous researches highlighted the importance of socio-economic factors; but widely overlooked the role of social capital in technology adoption and its potential to create collective actions, reduce transaction costs, relax supply side constraints, and disseminate information. Using socio-economic data of 398 farming households, the study assessed social capital as a determinant for soil and water conservation practices (SWC) such as terraces, bunds and agro-forestry as well as adopting productivity enhancing technologies (PET) such as fertilizers and improved high yielding seed varieties applying a probit model. The result showed that members of Iddir (informal funeral group) were more likely to adopt SWC (18.2%). For the case of PET, Iddir members were 12.8% less likely to adopt. Being members of Jarsumma (informal conflict resolution) increased the likelihood of SWC and PET adoption by 12.87% and 17.8%, respectively. Therefore, technology transfer should consider different types of social capital as an alternative policy option to the prevailing top down approaches in order to improve smallholder livelihoods.

Farmer-based dynamics in tissue culture banana technology adoption: a socio-economic perspective among small holder farmers in Uganda

“…Other than age, the other demographic variables progressively become negatively associated with the probability of adoption and production of beer banana as the productivity proceeds from cycle to cycle. Although Husen et al (2017) indicate a negative relationship between age and the adoption of some agricultural technologies in Ethiopia, and Ssentamu et al (2012) and Rosemarie (2010) disassociated gender issues as a factor in new technology acceptance in Kenya and Philippines respectively, and these are contrary to the findings of this study for Uganda as far as tissue culture banana technology is concerned.…”

“…The participation of the male gender is an indicator of the profitability of the banana growing project even at small -holder farmer level. Whereas the females" practices and involvement in banana production projects may greatly be driven by food security orientation (Husen et al, 2017), the men"s impetus is in most cases financial (Alinovi et al, 2010). This understanding contravenes earlier arguments that the association between gender and the probability of adoption of agricultural technology is rather not significant.…”

“…Whereas, it is quite true that bananas are versatile, the present discussions have often times more than not fallen short of addressing the socio economic dynamics within smallholder farmers affecting the adoption of the new technologies that come along with the development of this fruit crop. Some studies generally tag adoption of the new banana technologies to the levels of diversity of cultivars on the market, (Changadeya et al, 2012), and the extent to which the technology addresses smallholder farmers" agronomical problems (Changadeya et al, 2012;Langat et al, 2013;Husen et al, 2017), as well as how the new technologies lead to increased production and profit (Dube 2017). Such factors inform farmers" cultivar predilections and socio-economic needs to be met when choice from the available diversity is made.…”

Social Capital and Adoption of Alternative Conservation Agricultural Practices in South-Western Nigeria

“…These challenges call for holistic interventions that are sustainable, promote a safe environment, and ultimately increase production output. Thus, a practice with zero environmental and human hazards which have literatures converging [3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11] on its capability to use renewable local farm resources for sustainable and increased production output is called conservative agriculture (CA).…”

Social Capital in Rural Ethiopia Agrarian Society

“…Hence it reduces the production cost. Nizam A.,et al (2017) analyzed the effect of being membership of Debo for soil and water conservation practices (SWC) and productivity enhancing technologies(PET) adopters and non-adopters. The paper employed data collected in a socio-economic household survey that is carried out during March to May 2014 among Ethiopian farmers.…”