Technology Transfer and Diffusion in Developing Economies: Perspectives from Agricultural Technology

Agricultural Technology

Technology has been a major driver of both the agricultural productivity increases of the past century and the financial success of many farm and agribusiness firms. The challenges of bringing new technology to market in the agricultural industry are changing - it is no longer adequate to conceive a new invention and convince farmers with a strong marketing campaign that they should adopt the technology that results from this invention. Technology, especially in the developing world has, to a large extent, been dominated by multinational corporations looking for large profits. Without the means to buy the technologies they offer, farmers have retained old farming techniques and the result has been a less productive agriculture sector. And with the cautious approach to use of biotechnology in agriculture, farmers have also been unable to benefit from these technologies. Thus many farming systems face low yields, high crop losses, and high production costs.

Agricultural technology focuses on technological processes used in agriculture. The New World Encyclopedia (2008) defines agricultural technology as technology for the production of machines used on a farm to help with farming. Agricultural machines have been designed for practically every stage of the agricultural process. They include machines for tilling the soil, planting seeds, irrigating the land, cultivating crops, protecting them from pests and weeds, harvesting, threshing grain, livestock feeding, and sorting and packaging the products. The definition is narrow as it focuses on mechanization of agriculture leaving out non mechanical processes such as development of improved breeds of animals and crop species/genetic engineering.