Role of education and extension in the adoption of technology: a study of upland rice and soybean farmers in Central‐West Brazil
研究了巴西中西部旱稻和大豆农户的教育水平与农业推广服务对技术采纳的影响，发现教育有积极作用，且推广人员的经验质量能促进农户采用改良耕作方法。
ABSTRACT This paper explores reduced form determinants of the adoption of certain technologies by upland rice and soybean farmers in the Center‐West region of Brazil. We merge community level data on the availability and quality of publicly provided infrastructure, principally extension, to the farm level data containing information on farmer human capital as well as land quantity and quality. By using community level measures of availability and quality of extension, we avoid problems of endogeneity of farm level measures of extension use. We find positive impacts of farmer education on the diffusion process, in accordance with other studies. We also isolate effects of the quality in regional extension investment as measured by the average experience of technical extension staff. These results indicate that investments in human capital of extension workers does have a payoff in terms of farmer adoption of improved cultivation practices.