Three Essays on Adoption and Impact of Agricultural Technologies

This dissertation is composed of three essays examining adoption and impact of agricultural technologies. The first two papers estimate adoption and impact of iron-biofortified bean varieties in Rwanda. These varieties are bred to have high iron content and high yields to improve the health and livelihoods of rural households. The third essay estimates the spillover effects of seed producer groups (SPGs) in Nepal on nearby non-SPG member households. These SPGs were established to produce and sell stress tolerant rice varieties (STRVs) and other improved rice varieties and were trained on a number of improved management practices for rice cultivation.

The first essay, titled "Promoting rapid and sustained adoption of biofortified crops: What we learned from iron-biofortified bean delivery approaches in Rwanda" uses duration modeling to estimate how a number of delivery approaches designed to distribute iron-biofortified bean varieties to farmers have increased the speed of adoption, reduced the speed of disadoption, and increased the speed of readoption of iron-biofortified bean varieties. We find that these delivery approaches have been very effective at promoting adoption and reducing disadoption. Policy makers can learn lessons from this research regarding distribution of biofortified crops in Rwanda and elsewhere.

The second essay, titled "The impact of iron-biofortified bean adoption on bean productivity, consumption, purchases and sales" examines the impact of adoption of the most popular iron-biofortified bean variety, RWR2245, on adopting households. We use a control function approach with instrumental variables related to iron-biofortified bean delivery approaches to control for selection bias of adoption. We find that adoption increases yield, household bean consumption from own-production, and bean sales while reducing bean purchases. This implies that iron-biofortified bean adoption has a strong potential to improve nutrition and food security of adopting households, as beans make up a large portion of the average Rwandan diet.

The third and final essay, titled "The spillover effects of seed producer groups on non-member households in local communities in Nepal" examines the spillover benefits of SPGs onto non-member farmers in villages with an SPG or are adjacent to a village with an SPG. We find that SPGs have increased adoption of STRVs, improved the seed replacement rate, and increased use of some best management practices among non-members within SPG villages, and have increased adoption of the STRVs in at least one past seasons among non-members in adjacent villages.