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The impact of social networks on hybrid seed adoption in India
Author(s) -
Matuschke Ira,
Qaim Matin
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
agricultural economics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.29
H-Index - 82
eISSN - 1574-0862
pISSN - 0169-5150
DOI - 10.1111/j.1574-0862.2009.00393.x
Subject(s) - pearl , subsistence agriculture , context (archaeology) , social network analysis , social network (sociolinguistics) , business , economics , marketing , geography , agriculture , social capital , biology , ecology , computer science , sociology , social media , social science , archaeology , world wide web
This article adds to the literature about the impact of social networks on the adoption of modern seed technologies among smallholder farmers in developing countries. The analysis centers on the adoption of hybrid wheat and hybrid pearl millet in India. In the local context, both crops are cultivated mainly on a subsistence basis, and they provide examples of hybrid technologies at very different diffusion stages: while hybrid wheat was commercialized in India only in 2001, hybrid pearl millet was launched in 1965. The analysis is based on surveys of wheat and millet farmers in the state of Maharashtra. Comprehensive data on farmer characteristics and social interactions allow for identifying individual networks, thereby improving upon previous research approaches that employed village‐level variables as proxies for network effects. Using econometric models, we find that individual social networks play an important role for technology adoption decisions. While village‐level variables may be used as suitable proxies at later diffusion stages, they tend to underestimate the role of individual networks during early phases of adoption.