Abstract
Adoption of new plant varieties has played a significant role in eradicating global hunger. Previous research has mainly focused on farmer adoption and impact of new crop varieties, although upstream adoption of technologies in plant breeding can generate substantial multiplier effects on downstream impacts. This study moves upstream in the innovation system to generate policy advice on adoption and transfer of accelerated rice breeding technologies. More specifically, we assess the determinants of global adoption of rapid generation advance (RGA) through a sample of 158 rice breeders operating in various research institutes worldwide. Moving upstream in the innovation system has important theoretical and empirical implications due to the smaller number of decision‐making units in the adoption process and the increasing role of institutional and managerial factors that may overrule individual adoption motivations. We revisit multi‐stage models and devise the most robust estimation method that can be used in this situation. To generate insights on the impact of individual versus institutional adopter characteristics on upstream technology adoption, we juxtapose the response curves of the determinants of RGA adoption in rice breeding among alternative adoption stages, levels of conditionality and model specifications. Our findings confirm the importance of institutional and managerial factors and suggest that adoption and transfer of breeding technologies require breeding institutes to provide an enabling environment in which breeders are encouraged to take risks and are given sufficient freedom to experiment with and implement new technologies.
Highlights
Moving upstream in the innovation system inevitably leads to a smaller number of decision- making units in the adoption process; from millions of farmers to hundreds of plant breeders operating under a few dozens of breeding institutes worldwide
Given this naturally low sample size and evidence from simulation studies that instrumental variable analysis is only useful for either powerful instruments or an extensive sample (Boef et al, 2014; Crown et al, 2011), we refrain from such analysis and instead attempt to reduce endogeneity caused by omitted variable bias by including a broad set of covariates controlling for leader, institutional and external characteristics
Female breeders are found to be 16.5% more likely to be willing to adopt rapid generation advance (RGA); this gender effect is reversed in the adoption stages (Tables 3 and 4)
Summary
A three-stage adoption model involving both real and stated behaviour is often reduced to a two-stage model (a so-called one-way-up model of adoption) by combining revealed adoption and stated adoption intentions (Cooper, 1997; Hubbell et al, 2000; Qaim & de Janvry, 2003) This reductionist approach, makes the implicit assumptions that (i) there is no selection present; (ii) actual users and intended users have the same utility function and associated coefficients (Cooper, 1997); and (iii) data on adoption intentions are not truly ‘missing’ for adopters as the latter can be assumed to be willing to adopt, which may not always hold, in institutional settings where employees (e.g., breeders) report to management. A two-stage model is estimated where the participation stage distinguishes positive from negative adoption status (stated or revealed) (stage 1ʹ in panel III), and
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