Adoption of diversified farm technology in a semi arid of northern Ethiopia: A Panel Data Analysis

Technological change in agriculture in climate risk exposed developing countries requires for three major reasons: First, the increased climate risk and increase the need for new agricultural technologies that are more robust to such variability. Second, a need for land use intensification to feed the growing populations and third, economic transformation that creates an opportunity for market-oriented production that is more focused on the production of crops for market. This study emphasizes to assess factors associated with the extent of and intensity of adoption of three farm technologies (high yield wheat, drought tolerant teff, and cash crops) in the semi-arid of northern Ethiopia. We estimate determinants of adoption of the three technologies using double hurdle models. We apply correlated random effects with control function approach to control for possible endogeneity associated with access to the technologies. Results show that high population density has a positive and significant effect on the adoption decision of improved wheat and, irrigation has positive and significant effect on adoption of cash crops. Adoption of drought-tolerant teff is access constrained. Hence, increasing access to drought-tolerant teff and promoting irrigation appears to be adoption stimulants of drought-resistant teff and cash crops in a climate risk environment