Identification and selection of technology for a specific agricultural region: A case study of sheep husbandry and dryland farming in the northern Negev of Israel

Abstract

The chances that innovative technology will succeed in a given agricultural region are difficult to determine in advance. Information that would point to the likely or optimum course of development would be very useful for development planning and applied agricultural research administration. An approach is presented whereby the diffusion of new technology can be analysed in the context of a developing region. The development of sheep husbandry and wheat cultivation systems in a semi-arid agropastoral region in the northern Negev of Israel is used as a case study. The approach employed involves defining the input/output relations of a set of technologies based on wheat cultivation and on an increasingly intensive range of sheep production systems. The region is defined by its borders, land classes, physical and financial capital, available labour, plant and animal genetic stock and climatic conditions. An optimum mix of technologies over a development period is determined by using a multiperiod linear programming routine. The technology assessment is then conducted by varying the future socio-economic scenarios of the region and analysing the response of the model. The results indicated that the most fertile sheep breed, the Finn cross, would be selected only if labour were plentiful and cheap. It would also be selected whenever the demand for sheep created high shadow prices—especially at the beginning of a development period. The local, relatively extensive, breed of sheep (Awassi) is maintained over a long period even when meat: grain price ratios are high. Eventually, it tends to phase out in favour of a more intensive breed, the German Mutton Merino. The high price ratio did not result in massive transfer to confined, intensive husbandry but increased the use of improved pasture on cultivable land.