Access to Information and the Adoption of Hybrid Maize: Evidence from China's Poor Areas

Abstract

This paper investigated the role of farmers' access to information in a farm household's decisions of whether or not to adopt hybrid maize and the amount to adopt using data collected in a poor region of China. The empirical results suggest that increased availability of medium and more frequent extension visits would lead more farmers to adopt the hybrid maize. It is also found that, once adoption is realized, more frequent extension visits to the adopters will be vital to influence farmers to allocate more of their maize area to hybrid maize. The paper also demonstrate the adoption of new technology in the poor areas may well be different from that in the rich areas.