Institutional Constraints on the Transfer of Agricultural and Complementary Resource-Conservation Technologies Appropriate for Semi-Arid Africa

摘要

The induced innovation theory, which holds that appropriate new agricultural technologies will be adopted by farmers and that the necessary supportive institutional changes will follow, is challenged in the study. Addressing institutional issues primarily from the viewpoint of individual farmers as potential adopters, the study uses three low-resource, low-cost, drought-resistant technologies to illustrate its arguments; response farming (i.e., basing crop selection on rainfall predictions); the use of drought-resistant seed strains; and alley cropping. The study (1) examines the economics of existing semi-arid production systems, (2) describes the kinds of institutions needed to test and adapt potentially appropriate technologies; (3) discusses possible political, land tenure, and legal constraints on technology adoption; and (4) analyzes marketing, credit, and infrastructural constraints, with particular reference to foodgrains, perishables, and industrial crops.