Farmers' Stepwise Adoption of Technological Packages: Evidence from the Mexican Altiplano

Abstract

Abstract Agricultural research and extension programs in developing countries, rather than following the conventional package approach, should be designed to take into account the fact that farmers adopt improved technological components in a stepwise manner. On‐farm experimental and survey data collected from two rainfall zones in a high valley of Mexico are synthesized to show that farmers have rationally followed a stepwise process of adopting improved varieties, fertilizer, and herbicide for barley, reflecting the relative profitability and riskiness of each component in each zone. Despite significant interactions between the components, it was still possible for farmers to adopt individual components in a sequential manner.