Determinants and effect of adoption of small scale biogas technology by rural households: the case of Sodo Zuria district, Wolaita zone, southern Ethiopia

The aim of this study was to assess determinants and effect of adoption of small scale biogas technology by rural households in Sodo Zuria district, Wolaita zone, southern Ethiopia. The population in selected three sample Kebeles were stratified into two categories (biogas user and non-user). A total of 153 respondents were randomly selected and interviewed by using interviewed schedule. Descriptive statistics, inferential statistics (chi-square and independent ttest) and binary logistic regression analysis were used to analyze the data. Logit model was used to analyze the adoption decision of biogas technology. The model result indicated that adopters and non-adopters differed in 6 out of 12 explanatory variables expected to influence the adoption of Biogas technology in the study area. Variables such as sex, education of respondents, livestock ownership, occupation, and attending training of respondents with biogas development had significant and positive influence on the use of biogas technology. On the other hand, distance to water had significant negative effect on the use of biogas technology. High installation cost (55%), negative attitude of community towards biogas energy (8%), inadequate skilled technicians (25%), lack of adequate fund, lack of interest, and poor infrastructure (10%) were the main challenges of using biogas technology. Biogas technology gives high contribution for the users especially in reduction of expenditure on cooking energy, saving time in preparation and cooking of food, provision of organic bio slurry, reduction of smoke in the kitchen, and making cooking more convenient 79%, 70%, 88%, and 95%respectively. The study suggests government and non-governmental organizations to strengthen farmers’ capacity and make them to focus on construction of new biogas technology in order to expand its benefits in the study area

Technology adoption on farms: Using Normalisation Process Theory to understand sheep farmers’ attitudes and behaviours in relation to using precision technology in flock management

Evidence suggests that UK sheep farmers experience lower productivity and profit margins than other livestock sectors and that they do not necessarily know where they gain or lose income from their flocks. More efficient use of precision technology has been identified as a potential way of addressing this problem. The mandatory requirement for Electronic Identification (EID) tags to be placed on all sheep offers an opportunity for sheep farmers to adopt precision technologies to manage herd health and maximise production and profit. Although the charactistics of farmers that are associated with adoption or non adoption of technology have been identified little is known about the social processes, meanings and experiences that influence uptake. This paper is novel as it draws on data from 36 sheep farmers in the UK and applies Normalization Process Theory (NPT) to gain an understanding of the reasons they do or do not use EID related precision technology on their farms. The interviews were tape recorded, transcribed verbatim and analysed using NVivo. Although respondents acknowledged the potential value of precision technology to improve their farm businesses they appeared to have alternative beliefs that were counter productive. Their beliefs that using precision technology posed a threat to their role as a good stockman, that it could not replace the need for hands-on interaction with their animals and that it was costly and difficult to use created an implementation gap. The use of NPT as an evaluation framework provided a valuable tool for increasing the understanding of contextual characteristics that undermine the routine embedding of such technology by sheep farmers. The data suggests that normalisation of the use of precision technology amongst sheep farmers could potentially be increased if manufacturers/suppliers co-design and work with farmer’s to ensure that the technology enables the farmer to be in control and operates as an aid to achieving high quality stockmanship rather than a mechanism for profit maximisation

Microeconomics of Technology Adoption

There is an emerging consensus among macro-economists that differences in technology across countries accounts for the major differences in per-capita GDP and the wages of workers with similar skills across countries. Accounting for differences in technology levels across countries thus can go a long way towards understanding global inequality. One mechanism by which poorer countries can catch up with richer countries is through technological diffusion, the adoption by low-income countries of the advanced technologies produced in high-income countries. In this survey, we examine recent micro studies that focus on understanding the adoption process. If technological diffusion is a major channel by which poor countries can develop, it must be the case that technology adoption is incomplete or the inputs associated with the technologies are under-utilized in poor, or slow-growing economies. Thus, obtaining a better understanding of the constraints on adoption are useful in understanding a major component of growth.technology adoption, review

Technology Adoption and Growth

Technology change is modeled as the result of decisions of individuals and groups of individuals to adopt more advanced technologies. The structure is calibrated to the U.S. and postwar Japan growth experiences. Using this calibrated structure we explore how large the disparity in the effective tax rates on the returns to adopting technologies must be to account for the huge observed disparity in per capita income across countries. We find that this disparity is not implausibly large.

Trade liberalization and credit constraints: Why opening up may fail to promote convergence

Recent evidence suggests that despite opening up a country for trade, the productivity gap between developed and emerging economies often does not close. This paper examines credit constraints as one channel held responsible for hampering convergence. Specifically, we extend a Melitz and Ottaviano (2008) type trade model with variable mark-ups to allow for endogenous technology adoption. We consider a framework with two countries that potentially differ with respect to credit market development. Firms have the option to adopt a more efficient technology by paying some fixed cost. A fraction of the fixed technology adoption cost has to be financed externally: in a less developed credit market, the costs of external finance and thus the total costs of technology adoption are higher. A reduction in trade costs raises demand abroad (pro technology-adoption effect) but reduces demand at home because of import competition (anti technology-adoption effect). We find that trade liberalization increases economic performance, that is average productivity and technology adoption, in both countries but that the productivity gap widens. Simulations show that the welfare gap widens too. Opening up without sufficient access to external funding thus fails to promote convergence

Technology Adoption and Fuzzy Patent Rights

This paper considers why a patentee may have little incentives to reduce the uncertainty of patent boundary. Clearer patent rights, i.e., when patent examination results better predict subsequent court decisions, provide better guidance to technologyspecific investment and encourage technology adoption. Undermild conditions, however, the patentee’s post-adoption payoff decreases in clarity. The patentee prefers to maintain “fuzzy” patent rights in order to monopolize the use of the technology, or when promoting technology adoption is not a strong concern. The latter happens when the patentee, as a pure licensor, has a low (ex ante) quality invention

Policy, Technology Adoption, and Growth

This paper describes a simple model of technology adoption which combines the two engines of growth emphasized in the recent growth literature: human capital accumulation and technological progress. Our model economy does not create new technologies, it simply adopts those that have been created elsewhere. The accumulation of human capital is closely tied to this adoption process: accumulating human capital simply means learning how to incorporate a new intermediate good into the production process. Since the adoption costs are proportional to the labor force, the model does not display the counterfactual scale effects that are standard in models with endogenous technical progress. We show that our model is compatible with various standard results on the effects of economic policy on the rate of growth.

Inequality, Technology Adoption and Development

No abstract.

Predicting Technology Adoption in Paddy (Rice) Cultivation at Sukoharjo and Wonokarto Village of Sekampung Subdistrict in East District of Lampung Province, Indonesia

IndonesianPengenalan banyak teknologi baru selama ini telah semakin kurang berhasil, sebagaimana ditunjukkan oleh tingkat adopsinya yang rendah. Proses pengenalan teknologi baru padi sampai petani berkeinginan untuk mengadopsinya memang bukanlah hal mudah. Tujuan makalah ini adalah menganalisi faktor-faktor yang menjadi penggerak niat petani untuk mengadopsi teknologi baru dalam budidaya padi dengan mempertimbangkan efek simultan dari peubah-peubah terukur dan variabel peubah-peubah laten yang mempengaruhi niat petani. Penelitian ini mengintegrasikan technology acceptance model (TAM) dan theory of planned behavior (TPB) untuk memprakirakan penerimaan teknologi petani melalui pengukuran niat dan kemampuan menjelaskan maksud mereka dalam hal sikap, persepsi kemudahan penggunaan, penggunaan, pengalaman masa lalu, persepsi pengaruh perilaku, dan peubah-peubah yang saling berhubungan. Hasil analisis data menunjukkan bahwa peubah persepsi kegunaan, persepsi kemudahan penggunaan, dan pengalaman masa lalu petani secara positif mempengaruhi sikap petani terhadap adopsi teknologi baru. Selain itu, hasil analisi juga menunjukkan bahwa peubah sikap persepsi yang mengendalian perilaku, persepsi keguanaan, kondisi fasilitas pendukung dan persepsi risiko secara positif mempengaruhi niat petani dalam mengadopsi teknologi. EnglishThe introduction of many new technologies has come up with limited success, as indicated by the low of observed rates of adoption. Furthermore, the process of introduction until paddy farmers have willingness to adopt this new technology is not always easy. The objective of this paper is to analyze factors that drive farmers\u27 intention to adopt a new technology in paddy cultivation, by taking into account simultaneous effects of measured and latent variables influencing the intention. This study uses integrated technology acceptance model (TAM) and theory of planned behavior (TPB) for predicting farmers\u27 technology acceptance by measuring their intentions, and the ability to explain their intentions in terms of their attitudes, perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness, past experience, perceived behavioral control, and interrelated variables. Results of this paper reveal that attitude, perceived behavioral control, perceived usefulness, resource facilitating conditions and perceived risks positively engender the intention of agricultural technology adoption