Adoption of Agricultural Production Practices: Lessons Learned from the U.S. Department of Agriculture Area Studies Project
Margriet Caswell, Keith Fuglie, Cassandra Ingram, Sharon Jans, and Catherine Kascak
Agricultural Economic Report No. (AER792) 116 pp,
January 2001
The U.S. Department of Agriculture Area Studies Project was designed to characterize the extent of adoption of nutrient, pest, soil, and water management practices and to assess the factors that affect adoption for a wide range of management strategies across different natural resource regions. The project entailed the administration of a detailed field-level survey to farmers in 12 watersheds in the Nation to gather data on agricultural practices, input use, and natural resource characteristics associated with farming activities. The data were analyzed by the Economic Research Service using a consistent methodological approach with the full set of data to study the constraints associated with the adoption of micronutrients, N-testing, split nitrogen applications, green manure, biological pest controls, pest-resistant varieties, crop rotations, pheromones, scouting, conservation tillage, contour farming, strip cropping, grassed waterways, and irrigation. In addition to the combined-areas analyses, selected areas were chosen for analysis to illustrate the difference in results between aggregate and area-specific models. The unique sample design for the survey was used to explore the importance of field-level natural resource data for evaluating adoption at both the aggregate and watershed levels. Further analyses of the data illustrated how the adoption of specific management practices affects chemical use and crop yields.
Keywords: Technology adoption, conservation
In this report ... Chapters are
in Adobe Acrobat PDF format.
- Frontmatter (Title page, Contents, Summary), 36 Kb
- Introduction, 53 Kb
- Data and Modeling Framework, 276 Kb
- Nutrient Management, 87 Kb
- Pest Management, 92 Kb
- Soil Management, 100 Kb
- Water Management, 72 Kb
- Adoption Impacts on Crop Yields and Chemical Use, 138 Kb
- Conclusions, 34 Kb
- Entire Report, 844 Kb
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Updated date: January 1, 2001
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