Adoption of Productivity-Enhancing Inputs and Improved Farm Practices in Cambodia's Rice Production

摘要

Agricultural intensification, particularly, the adoption of improved farm technologies has been considered by the government of Cambodia as a driving force for agricultural development, which will contribute to improving living standards, particularly in rural areas. Meanwhile, little research has empirically analyzed the factors that influence farmers' decisions to adopt improved farm technologies. Hence, this dissertation aims at adding to this literature and contributing to Cambodia's agricultural development policies through three empirical studies with a focus on the rice production -- the dominant sector of Cambodia's agriculture.;The first paper of this dissertation investigates the impact of formal and semi-formal land titles on the adoption of chemical fertilizer and manure in Cambodia's paddy production using pooled cross-sectional data of the Cambodia Socio-Economic Survey (CSES) from 2009 to 2014. Propensity Score Matching (PSM) and regressions on the matched samples were used to estimate the effects for each type of land title, controlling for village heterogeneity. The empirical findings show that both formal and semi-formal land titling significantly increases the average adoption rates of chemical fertilizer and manure, but the impact of formal land titling on manure adoption is higher than that of semi-formal titling. However, the empirical evidence shows that land titling does not significantly increase fertilizer expenditure and productivity. In general, this study suggests that formal and semi-formal land titling are equally conducive to fertilizer use and productivity improvement.;The second paper addresses two key issues: first, it examines whether farmers' decisions to adopt improved rice varieties and chemical fertilizer are interrelated (interdependent); second, it analyzes the determinants of the improved farm technology adoption. The quantitative data is based on the HARVEST (Helping Address Rural Vulnerabilities and Ecosystem Stability) household panel survey (2012-2016) in four provinces of Cambodia, while the qualitative data was collected from 25 semi-structured interviews with some of the surveyed households. The study applies a bivariate probit model to test for the interdependence of technology adoption, and the correlated random effects (CRE) framework to detect the determinants of adoption. The results indicate that adoption of an improved rice variety and chemical fertilizer at the plot level are complementary. The empirical results further suggest that irrigation, social learning in the form of information from neighbors, age of household head, secondary education, TV ownership (as a means of accessing the media), and remittances are positively associated with the adoption of improved farm technologies.;The third paper follows up on the second one by further examining the role of credit in the adoption of the interrelated inputs. Propensity Score Matching (PSM) and regressions on the matched samples were applied to examine the linkage between agricultural credit and the adoption of the interrelated inputs. This study relies on a cross-sectional survey from the Census of Agriculture of Cambodia (CAC), 2013. The results suggest that credit for agricultural activities increases the probability of adoption of high-yield rice variety, fertilizer, pesticide (or herbicide/fungicide) and the combination of the three types of modern input. The effect of credit on adoption of pesticides is the most robust, particularly when farm households contract loans from both formal and informal sources. Our empirical finding suggests that affordable credit for farm activities increases adoption of modern inputs in rice production.