Adoption of modern agricultural technologies by lowland indigenous groups in Bolivia: the role of households, villages, ethnicity, and markets

A survey of 102 Mojeño and 62 Yuracaré Amerindian households in the department of Beni in the Bolivian rain forest was done to measure the effects of household and village attributes, ethnicity, and markets on the adoption of chemical herbicides and insecticides for farming. We hypothesized: i) that...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Human ecology : an interdisciplinary journal 1998-09, Vol.26 (3), p.351-369
Main Authors: Godoy, R, Franks, J.R, Alvarado Claudio, M
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adoption of Innovations
Adult education
agricultural households
Agricultural Production
Agriculture, land tenure, rural space
America
American Indians
Bolivia
Crops
Economics
Emerging technology
Ethnicity
Ethnology
farm management
farm surveys
herbicides
Households
Human capital
Indigenous Populations
innovation adoption
insecticides
Lowlands
Markets
Morphological source materials
nationalities and ethnic groups
Peasant agriculture
probit analysis
rain forests
Rice
Sustainable agriculture
Technological Innovations
Traditional Societies
Villages
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Summary:A survey of 102 Mojeño and 62 Yuracaré Amerindian households in the department of Beni in the Bolivian rain forest was done to measure the effects of household and village attributes, ethnicity, and markets on the adoption of chemical herbicides and insecticides for farming. We hypothesized: i) that village attributes would matter more among households with weak links to the market, ii) that education and income would matter more in households integrated to the market, and iii) that ethnic membership would not matter because, as a null hypothesis, we assume all cultures are equally adept at processing information about technological innovations. The results of a probit model with Huber robust standard errors did not confirm any of the hypotheses. Village variables were statistically significant at all levels of integration to the market. Contrary to human capital theory, income and education played a more prominent role in relatively autarkic villages. Ethnicity was statistically significant in the pooled sample and at different levels of integration. Results suggest that conventional determinants of adoption of new farm technologies may need reappraisal in more autarkic settings.
ISSN:0300-7839
1572-9915
DOI:10.1023/A:1018779131004