Paper Title
Why some Crop Technologies Fail while some others Succeed? A Critical Analysis of BT Cotton and System of Rice Intensification (SRI) Technologies in Telangana State of India
Abstract
The relative rates of adoption of a technology varies from one technology to another and is a function of a number
of externalities, beyond the control of adopters in a social system. The purpose of the study was to assess the factors
contributing for differential performance of two new crop technologies that were introduced almost simultaneously in the
farming systems of Telangana state. Insights were made on how the social issues of farmers in terms of attributes of
innovation influence the adoption or rejection of these two technologies with the help of key informant interviews and
surveys. The attributes tested were relative advantage, compatibility, complexity, trialability and observability. Out of the six
components of relative advantage tested, all the six and three components were found to have high relative advantage for Bt
cotton and SRI respectively as perceived by farmers. Bt cotton is found to be more compatible with the existing culture of
farmers, trailable and observable as well, whereas these attributes were less compatible with SRI. The study concluded that
for successful adoption of innovations evolved in participatory mode, formation of location specific committees,
identification of areas for action research, extension and collecting timely feedback is critical. It is suggested for the
researchers that for introduction of a technology involving complex skills, an inbuilt mechanism to provide capacity building
programmes is indispensable. To improve the innovation adoption rates, this study recommends outreach personnel and
policy makers to constitute location specific Research and Development committees that includes farmers, public
researchers, outreach scientists of Government and NGOs in the technology development process. The major social issues
trickled from the farmers choices need special attention for providing direction and development of policies for increased
rates of technology adoption.
Keywords- Attributes, Bt Cotton, Location Specific Committees, SRI