18 pages, This study examines factors that appear to contribute to farmers’ adoption and discontinuation of poly house technology for off-season vegetable production. We collected cross-sectional survey data from a sample of 151 households in Kaski district, Nepal during October 2018. The data are analyzed using Heckman’s two stage sample selection model. The study reveals that the family members report being engaged in nonfarm sector that there is an increased probability of discontinuation of poly house technology. Farmers may be diverting their labor towards nonfarm activities that result in higher returns to labor and different risks. At the same time, the results indicate that farmers who did not receive training on vegetable production were more likely to discontinue poly house technology. It was also found that increasing farmers’ engagement with marketing activities increased the likelihood of farmers to continue poly house technology and increase household income. The provision of continued technical support (e.g., training), input supply (e.g., seeds, fertilizers) and market information are essential to sustain the adopted technologies. The study sheds light on the sustainability of technology adoption by underpinning the importance of extension services for longer-term adoption. We believe that the combined effect of various technologies would be associated with sustained adoption of the improved off-season technologies. This provides a new direction to operationalize farmer-oriented policies in agricultural extension and helps in devising programs for sustained adoption of technology.
9 pages, The present study was conducted in Faisalabad at Social Sciences Research Institute, Pakistan
Agricultural Reseaerch Council, Ayub Agricultural Research Institute, Faisalabad, Pakistan
during 2019. Countries wise time series data of exported fruits and vegetables were taken
from AMIS for finding instability of commodities and countries. Current study focused on the
compound annual growth rates of production, export quantity and value of mostly exported
fruits and vegetables. Growth trends of selected commodities were executed by using semitrend growth model. Coefficient of variation technique was used to find out instability of specific
commodity for specific country/market. Selected exported vegetables (potato, tomato, onion
and garlic) indicated instability results for Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Qatar and Indonesia among
given markets and within the given period. Among fruits kinnow export shared 24.96, mango
export results showed 22.08 percent share in total fruits export followed by 13.55 percent share
of orange and 8.6 percent export share of dates dried in total export from Pakistan. Results
observed for instability of exports to countries, minimum value of coefficient of variation (24.34
percent) was recorded for Bahrein market for kinnow export and Bahrein market was stable
among given markets. Similarly, mango results showed that export of mango to Germany market
was stable among given markets and within the given period. Export of orange to Saudi Arabia
market and export of dates to Bangladesh market was stable among given markets within the
given period of time. Finally, in order to lessen the instability, it can be proposed that Pakistan
ought to take steps to boost the exports of primary commodity and value added products to raise
revenue profitable.
