Impediments to Technical Progress on Small versus Large Farms

Abstract

During the past four years, Centro Internacional de Mejoramiento de Maiz y Trigo (CIMMYT) has been associated with a number of farm-level studies of the adoption of new wheat and maize varieties and fertilizer use. Most of these studies have now been published, and it is our purpose here to summarize some of the findings with respect to impediments to farmer adoption of new varieties. Farm-to-farm differences in the date of adoption or the extent of adoption of new technology might be explained by a number of considerations. The studies reviewed here considered farm-to-farm differences in the cost of acquiring and processing information, differences in the physical productivity of the new technology, differences in incentives due to tenure arrangements, differences in the cost of inputs, differences in prices received for the product, differential aversion to risk among farmers, and scale effects associated with farm or enterprise size. Policies to stimulate more rapid or more extensive adoption will vary in their success depending upon which of these factors are the most important in limiting the rate and extent of adoption. Of particular relevance is the extent to which small farmers lag behind large farmers in adoption and which of the above factors might account for that lag. The studies were directed toward factors