Agricultural innovations enhance productivity and food security.
Kolawole Ogundari and Olufemi D. Bolarinwa ‘18 (Dr. Kolawole Ogundari - An accomplished Applied Economist and Research/Data Analyst with over twenty years of global experience and exposure to multiple qualitative and quantitative analytical research, consulting, and teaching domains and Dr. Olufemi D. Bolarinwa - Applied Economist and a researcher. He earned his Master's degree in Agricultural and Resource Economics from the University of Delaware in 2011, March 2018, pg.1, https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/1467-8489.12247 - GM
Agricultural innovations are often promoted as a ‘package’ of technologies, which are released to farmers for adoption in order to improve the productivity of their farm enterprises. They are specifically designed to offer benefits to farmers through improvement of their soil fertility, conservation of soil nutrients, water and other natural resources, raising yields, improving pest management, decreases effects of climate change and aiding farm mechanisation.1 As noted by Asfaw et al. (2010), the development and dissemination of effective yield-increasing technologies are crucial to growth in agricultural productivity, especially in developing countries.
Adoption of agricultural innovations and technologies is essential in ensuring food security and poverty reduction, by potentially increasing the income of farming households as well as reducing the market price of staple foods (de Janvry and Sadoulet 2001). Since adoption of new agricultural technology is important to the realization of agriculture's full potential, study of the impact of adopting agricultural innovation and technology has remained central to both the academics and policymakers over the years.
Two prominent research designs used to examine the impact of adopting agricultural innovations and technologies are the experimental research design and the observational approach. The experimental design uses treatment and comparison groups that are assumed to be randomly selected so that adoption is uncorrelated with the outcome variable. An example of this approach is the randomized control trial (RCT). Heinrich and Lopez (2009) argue that when RCT approach is used, the average impact of adopting agricultural technology and innovation can easily be obtained by comparing potential outcomes of interest for adopters and nonadopters. Although the RCT design may give reliable evidence, expense and other barriers often prove to be prohibitive. As a result, most studies are usually observational (or nonexperimental).