Study on adoption of Potato technologies

Introduction
Potato is important crops of Nepal. It ranked Potato ranks fourth in terms of area cultivation in Nepal after
rice, maize, wheat and oil seeds ( MoAd 2015). It is one of the important crops to address food insecurity
in the country. Nepal produces 2.81 million tonnes of potato annually. However, import trends show that
the countrys output is unable to meet the requirement. According to the Ministry of Agricultural
Development, Nepal imported potato (fresh or chilled) valued at Rs 5.09 billion in the last fiscal year.
Jhapa is the top potato producing district with an output followed by Kaver, Bara and Kailali (Karki,
2015).

Objective
To identify the adoption status of potato production technology in Nepal

Justification
Agricultural technology adoption study has many policy implications in agricultural development. It
serves as a tool for evaluating the distributional impacts of new innovations, for documenting the impact
of an innovation or extension effort, for identifying and reducing the constraints to adoption, and as a
research guide to focusing innovation priority. Identification of the factors affecting adoption and
assessing several impact indicators such as land and labor productivity, poverty reduction, food security,
gendered differentials, income and employment, etc. is the important research issue which needs to be
addressed to guide future research funding, justify past expenditure, and priority setting.

Methodology

2.1.1: Estimate rate and dynamics of Adoption

Incidence and intensity of adoption are two widely used indicators of adoption. The incidence of
adoption is measured as percentage of farmers growing improved variety at specific point in time. The
intensity of adoption at the farm level reflects percentage of area planted to improved variety.

2.1.2: Determine the factor affecting adoption and non adoption of Potato variety
A Tobit model will be used to investigate the determinants of adoption of the improved Potato varieties in
Nepal. The ordinary least squares regression is inappropriate when the dependent variable is
discontinuous (Feder et al. 1982). Logit and Probit models are appropriate when the dependent variable is
discrete, usually taking two values, 0 or 1. These models are useful if the question is whether to adopt or
not, but are not appropriate when it is important to measure the intensity of adoption of a technology. The
Tobit model which better handles censored dependent variables (continuous between some lower and
possibly upper bound) (Pindyck and Rubinfield 1998, Shakya and Flinn 1985) is superior to the Logit and
Probit. It measures both the probability of adoption and intensity of use. In this study, the Tobit model
will be used to achieve the stated objectives.

Following Shakya and Flinn (1985), the empirical model for this study is specified as follows:

Y* = ? + ? X + ? ..1
and
Y = g(Y*) ..2
where Y=Y* for Y > 0 Y = 0, otherwise
Y* is an index reflecting the combine effect of X (farmer specific and technology specific) factors that
influence adoption decision. Y is not observable. What is, however, observed is whether the farmer adopts
the technology (when Y* >0) or not ( when Y =0).Where Y is the area (ha) under improved Potato
varieties, X is as defined above, ? , ? are parameters to be estimated and ? is a stochastic error term.

The probability of adoption and use intensity can be estimated using the following conditional
expectation function:

E(Y|Y*) = Y*.F(Y*/?) + ?.f(Y*/? ..3

E(Y|Y*)= the expected area (ha) given that the variety is adopted
? = standard error of estimate (reported as Sigma in Table 7)
Y*/? = standardardized index
F(Y*/?)= Tobit probability of adoption, calculated from the cumulative normal distribution
f(Y*/?) = normal density function when Z = (Y*/ ?).

2.1.3: Measure Adoption index of improved Potato variety in Nepal

Adoption Index
The technology adoption practices include area under improved Potato varieties (HYVs),
appropriateness of irrigation level and dosage of fertilizers. The technology adoption can be computed by
using following formula (Singh et.al, 2005 cited in Timsina et al., 2012b) which was fitted for our study
purpose.

TAIi= [
1 AHi NAi PAi IAi KAi
+ + + +
5 CAi NRi PRi IRi KRi ]
Where,
i= Number of farmers, say 1, 2, 3,.., n.
TAIi = Technology Adoption Index of ith farmer
AHi= Area under modern Potato varieties (ha)
CAi = Total area of Potato (ha)
NAi = Quantity of nitrogen applied for Potato (kg/ha)
NRi = Recommended dose of nitrogen of Potato (kg/ha)
PAi =Quantity of phosphorus applied for Potato (kg/ha)
PRi = Recommended dose of phosphorus of Potato (kg/ha)
IAi = Actual number of irrigation applied in Potato during crop cycle
IRi =Recommended number of irrigations during Potato crop cycle
KAi = Actual amount of potash applied for Potato (kg/ha)
KRi = Recommended amount of potash applied for Potato (kg/ha)

This index was used to analyse the adoption level of Potato growing farmers. In order to calculate
fertilizer dose, the fertilizer used quantity was converted into elementary form. The mean TAI between
farmers adopting improved Potato variety and non adopter were tested by using independent sample test.

Chi-square test:
 This test was used to see the difference in different technological aspects such as access to modern
varieties, easy availability labor, availability of loan, knowledge on modern agriculture technology, and
use and availability of agriculture information between adopter and non adopter sites.

2.1.4: Comparative analysis of cost and return among adopter and non adopter of improved Potato
variety
To estimate profitability, economic analysis was conducted through the estimation of Gross Margins
(GM), Net Returns (NR), Returns to Investment (RI) and Benefit Cost Ratio (BCR).

GM = TR-TVC ..1
NR= GM-TFC... ...2
RI= GM/TFC.3
TCP=TVC +TFC...4
BCR=NR/TCP..5
Where
GM is gross margin in NRs./ha
TR= Total revenue in NRs./ha
TVC= Total Variable Cost in NRs./ha
NR= Net Return in NRs./ha
TFC= Total Fixed Cost in NRs./ha
RI= Returns to investment
TCP= Total Cost of production
BCR=Benefit Cost Ratio

References

Timsina, K.P., K.P. Shrestha and S. Pandey. 2012. Factors affecting adoption of new modern
varieties of Rice in eastern Terai of Nepal. In the proceeding of 4th Society of Agricultural
Scientist-Nepal (SAS-N) conference held at Lalitpur 4-6 April, 2012. Published by Nepal
Agricultural Research Council (NARC) & Society of Agricultural Scientists (SAS-N),
Nepal, Pp 48-54.

Feder, G. 1980. Farm size, risk aversion and adoption of new technology under uncertainty. Oxford
Economic papers 32:263-295
Shaky, P.B., and J.C. Flinn. 1985. Adoption of modern varieties and fertilizer use on rice in the eastern
terai of Nepal. Journal of Agricultural Economics 26(3).