A Analysis On The Factors Influencing Farmers To Adopt New Varieties Of Rice And Wheat In Gaoyou County

Topic: A analysis on the factors influencing farmers to adopt new varieties of rice and wheat in Gaoyou County. Author: He Zheng-tian. Specialty: Field of Planting. Research Program: Development of Rural Area. College: College of Humanities and Development. Supervisor: Professor Wang De-hai.Focused on the extension of the improved rice and wheat varieties in two villages of Gaoyou City, Jiangsu Province, this paper studied factors which have impacts on the process of extension by two major steps, 1) theoretical analysis of the concrete factors on farmers' adoption of new varieties and, establishment of the analysis and demonstration model; 2) demonstration and practical analysis with farmer households by questionnaires and, analyze and study on the factors with the Probit model. Conclusions and recommendations of this paper can be drawn as follows:1. Extension offices and village leaders are the major channels that farmers gain agricultural science and technology. To certain extent, village leaders and rural extensionists are the early practitioners and 'spreaders' of the new techniques and they therefore transferred what they learnt to farmers;2. In order to increase efficiency of extension, different methods should be applied in accordance with the nature of the technologies and techniques. For instance, extension of the improved rice and wheat varieties in Gaoyou was driven by different measures including pilot demonstration, technical trainings, policy guidance, establishment of entities (or farmers associations), contract-based production of individual households;3. Farmers' requirements on science and technology varied in different conditions. Currently, disease resistance is farmers' first concern on the application of rice variety, other concerns ca be prioritized as high yield, lodging resistance, quality, and mature; for wheat variety, the first concern is high yield, and others including lodging resistance, mature, quality and disease resistance;4. Many factors have impacts on fanners' adoption of rice and wheat varieties. By analyzing with the Probit model, it is found that during farmers' adoption of the soft flour wheat variety, increased production, high quality, good marketing price and attitudes of rural extension departments are the crucial factors; education backgrounds, frequency of contacts with extensionists, channels of getting information and technologies, and efforts on popularizing of the new varieties have significant impacts; possession of arable land, having village cadres in family, carrying out subsidy for improved seed, the satisfaction on extension services having certain influences; and, ages of household heads, income from non-agricultural fields having negative influences;5. The most important motivation for farmers to adopt new varieties and technologies is the increased income, therefore, we should make continuous efforts on insisting the marker-orientation, providing good marketing price for qualified grain products, improving rural extension system, modifying extension services, improving popularization of the improved rice and wheat varieties by mass media, providing more trainings to farmers, increasing farmers' diathesis, encouraging farmers' adoption of more new technologies in order to increase their income.