Adoption of GM Technology at Farm Level

Conor Keelan (), Fiona Thorne, Paul Flanagan, Carol Newman and Ewen Mullins
Additional contact information
Conor Keelan: Rural Economy and Development Programme, Teagasc, Athenry, Co. Galway, Ireland
Fiona Thorne: Rural Economy and Development Programme, Teagasc, Athenry, Co. Galway, Ireland
Paul Flanagan: Oak Park Research Centre, Teagasc, Carlow
Ewen Mullins: Oak Park Research Centre, Teagasc, Carlow

No 810, Working Papers from Rural Economy and Development Programme,Teagasc

Abstract: In this paper a probit model is used to assess the factors that will influence the decision of Irish farmers to adopt GM technology should they be given a choice in the near future of selecting between GM and non-GM varieties of crops. The theory underlying the model emanates from the wide literature on adoption and diffusions theory. The decision of whether or not to use new agricultural technologies has generally been found to be a function of specific features of the particular technology and farm and farmer characteristics. The results from the probit model indicate that among the likely early adopters of GM technology in Ireland are farmers with large farm acreage who are specialist crop farmers and who have formal agricultural education together with access to high quality soils. Contrary to expectations and theory the age of farmer was insignificant in the final specification of the model, indicating that agricultural education and age of the farm operator are highly correlated. Furthermore having an off-farm job did not positively influence the adoption decision. Neither tenure nor profitability had any influence in determining the likelihood of adoption once farm size was accounted for indicating that farm size may dominate other farm level characteristics which was supportive of the results of the correlation matrix.

Keywords: GM technology; adoption and diffusions theory; technological innovations; probit models (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 20 pages
Date: 2008
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.teagasc.ie/rural-economy/downloads/workingpapers/08wpre10.pdf First version, 2008 (application/pdf)
Our link check indicates that this URL is bad, the error code is: 404 Not Found (http://www.teagasc.ie/rural-economy/downloads/workingpapers/08wpre10.pdf [301 Moved Permanently]--> https://www.teagasc.ie/rural-economy/downloads/workingpapers/08wpre10.pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:tea:wpaper:0810

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers from Rural Economy and Development Programme,Teagasc Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by John Lennon ().