Studies On The Factors Affecting The Adoption Of New Technology In Fine Quality Rice By The Peasant Households

Since the implementation of reform and opening up policy, the household responsibility system (HRS) in rural area has played an important role in promoting China's agricultural development. However, HRS also placed barriers in the adoption of new agricultural technologies by farmers as well as in the further development of rural areas just because of its small scale household.To understand the factors affecting the adoption of new agricultural technologies by rural households, this paper took the adoption of new technologies in high quality rice by the households of Xia Lei Village and Qou Dong Village of Xin Yu town, Nanning Suburb, Guangxi, as examples, analyzed the situation of adoption of new technologies related to high quality rice by the households of the two villages as well as the major factors affecting the adoption of new technologies in fine quality rice from the view points of households, made some suggestions on promotion of the adoption of new technologies in agriculture by the local households based on the concrete situation in Chinese rural areas and farmers by participatory rural appraisal (PRA ) , randomized sampling and systematized interviewing. The results showed that: (1) there are certain differences in adoption of new technology in high quality rice among villages in Nanning Suburb due to the different natural and social environments; (2) there are certain differences among households of the same village in the rate of adoption of new technology in high quality rice. The major internal factors that affect the household's decision-making are degree of education, age, gender, land area, input of capital, materials of production, etc. and the externals, package technologies of the new technology adopted, the situation of demand and provision for the produce, the policy, law as well as regulation of the nation, the custom and planting habits in the local, expected economic benefit and demonstrations done by others, etc. Only a few well off farmers with relatively high education are willing to take a risk of adopting the new technology in order to gain high economic reward, and therefore become the first users of the mew technology. The majority of the households consider new technology highly risky. They remain a conservative and precautionary attitude to the adoption of new technology due to many confined factors and the weakness for anti-risks, and will not adopt the new technology until they see the result obtained by the first users. Therefore, different methods and different means should be employed for the extension of new agricultural technologies in coincidence with location and household conditions. Only by this way, can we raise the rate of adoption of new technology by households, thereby increasing yields and farmers' income as well as their living standard.