Neighborhood Effects in Hybrid Rice Adoption in Davao del Sur, Philippines

Abstract

The Philippines adopted the hybrid rice technology in 1998 to increase productivity; however, the adoption rate is 9% of the total rice area in 2016. Thus, it is important to understand the adoption decision of farmers in relation to hybrid rice technology. Previous studies of rice technology adoption in the Philippines did not consider the spatial dependencies, wherein the choice of adoption of a farmer is influenced by the choice of the neighboring farmers. Hence, this study identifies the factors that influence the farmers’ adoption decision of hybrid rice technology, focusing on the role of spatial proximity. A survey involving 122 rice farmer-respondents using proportional random sampling was conducted in Padada and Hagonoy, Davao del Sur, Philippines in 2016. Using the Bayesian-Markov Chain Monte Carlo spatial autoregressive probit estimation, this study found that proximity to neighbors is associated with the choice of the farmers to adopt hybrid rice technology. Moreover, the sex of the household head (HH), household size, non-farm income, and rainfall are the major determinants of adopting hybrid rice technology. Thus, the interventions should focus on delivering better access of female farmers to productive resources and those with relatively higher household size, improve access to non-farm livelihood and employment opportunities, and reinforce proven risk mitigation practices in terms of providing stable water sources in the farming community.