Study on the Socioeconomic Factors Affecting Adoption of Agricultural Machinery

Abstract

In the context of south Asia, There is enough support for suitable agricultural machinery for small farmers. These kind of agricultural machineries can improve the return of investment in land and labor, although large capital investments are still required that can impede ownership. The growing demand for machinery has resulted in comparatively more developed rental marketplaces for irrigation, tillage and other post-harvest procedures. Numerous small businesses are therefore accepting access to farm machinery that would otherwise be incredibly expensive to buy through service fee arrangements, although there is still room for expansion. In order to facilitate the advancement and investment of such machinery more effectively, it is necessary to better understand the associated factors with the purchase of agricultural machinery and the provision of services. Firstly, current paper reviews country’s policy structure which enabled the existence of such machinery markets. It then uses stratified random sample of 305 wheat producing households for the survey from six districts, identifying variables associated with the adoption of the most common smallholder agricultural machinery e irrigation pumps, threshers, and power tillers. Results of multinomial probit model show that education of farmer, member of farmer’ organization, livestock ownership, farm size and being part of non-farm work activities all were significantly positive in the adoption of farm machinery. Findings also suggest that institutions and policy making authorities not only need to focus on short projects to encourage adoption of machinery, also there must be a continuous attention to improve physical and civilian infrastructure & services, and ensuring the availability of credit to create an favorable  conditions where agricultural machinery is most likely to be used. Keywords: Agricultural machinery, Investment, Productivity, Efficiency. DOI: 10.7176/JESD/11-3-07 Publication date: February 29th 202