Abstract
An accurate understanding of the factors that influence farmers’ adoption of a crop is critical for effective policy promotion and technical support. Agroforestry crop adoption is a complex topic involving many factors not often addressed by tradition crop adoption models. This complexity, when applied to Jatropha (Jatropha curcas L.), an often widely promoted yet poorly understood biofuel feedstock crop, requires a detailed analysis across diverse topics. Such an analysis was carried out through applying rigorous statistical tools to the data acquired from an interview-based household survey among Malian farmers and was combined with relevant geospatial datasets. The results showed that though farmers’ adoption is based on a wide variety of factors from household preferences, resource endowments, bio-physical factors, and market incentives, factors related to risk and uncertainty appear to provide the strongest correlation. Specifically, the number of visits that an agriculture extension agent makes with a farmer was found to be the most significant factor influencing adoption.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Achten WMJ, Verchot L et al (2008) Jatropha bio-diesel production and use. Biomass Bioenergy 32(12):1063–1084
Banerji R, Chowdhury AR et al (1985) Jatropha seed oils for energy. Biomass 8(4):277–282
Barrett CB, Place F et al (2002) The challenge of stimulating adoption of improved natural resource management practices in African agriculture. In: Barrett CB, Place F, Aboud A (eds) Natural resources management in African agriculture: understanding and improving current practices. CABI Publishing, Wallingford, pp 1–22
Carle AC (2009) Fitting multilevel models in complex survey data with design weights: recommendations. BMC Med Res Methodol 9:49
Duflo E, Kremer M, Robinson J (2005) Understanding fertilizer adoption: evidence from field experiments. Mimeo, MIT
Environmental Systems Research Institute (1993) Digital chart of the world
European Space Agency (2008) GlobCover land cover (v2.2)
Filmer D, Pritchett LH (2001) Estimating wealth effects without expenditure data—or tears: an application to educational enrollments in states of India. Demography 38(1):115–132
Gelman A (2008) Scaling regression inputs by dividing by two standard deviations. Stat Med 27:2865–2873
Gubitz GM, Mittelbach M et al (1999) Exploitation of the tropical oil seed plant Jatropha curcas L. Bioresour Technol 67(1):73–82
Hijmans R, Garcia N et al (2010a) GADM: database of global administrative areas
Hijmans RJ, Cameron S et al (2010b) WorldClim global climate data
Jeffrey-Coker F, Basinger M (2010) Open Data Kit—technology review. http://modi.mech.columbia.edu/2010/04/open-data-kit/
Korn EL, Graubard BI (1995a) Examples of differing weighted and unweighted estimates from a sample survey. Am Stat 49:291–295
Korn EL, Graubard BI (1995b) Analysis of large health surveys: accounting for the sampling design. J R Stat Soc A 158:263–295
Kumar A, Sharma S (2008) An evaluation of multipurpose oil seed crop for industrial uses (Jatropha curcas L.): a review. Ind Crop Prod 28(1):1–10
Lohr SL (2009) Sampling: design and analysis. Brooks/Cole Cengage Learning, Boston, MA
Meier L, van de Geer S et al (2008) The group lasso for logistic regression. J R Stat Soc B 70(1):53–71
Mercer DE (2004) Adoption of agroforestry innovations in the tropics: a review. Agrofor Syst 61–62:311–328
Minnesota Population Center (2009) Integrated public use microdata series, international: version 5.0 [machine-readable database]. University of Minnesota, Minneapolis
Openshaw K (2000) A review of Jatropha curcas: an oil plant of unfulfilled promise. Biomass Bioenergy 19(1):1–15
Pattanayak SK, Mercer DE et al (2003) Taking stock of agroforestry adoption studies. Agrofor Syst 57(1):173–186
Pfeffermann D, Skinner CJ, Holmes DJ, Goldstein H, Rasbash J (1998) Weighting for unequal selection probabilities in multilevel models. J R Stat Soc B 60:23–40
Rabe-Hesketh S, Skrondal A (2006) Multilevel modeling of complex survey data. J R Stat Soc A 169:805–827
Rodriguez-Sanchez FS (2010) Development and testing of business models for Jatropha powered multifunctional platforms (MFPs) for energy access services. Internal Report for cooperation agreement between Mali Biocarburant SA and ETC Foundation Agreement Number 079265-2009-033
Singer T (2008) Socio-economic baseline study. Mali Biocarburantm, Bamako
Su Y-S, Gelman A, Hill J, Yajima M (in review) Multiple imputation with diagnostics (mi) in R: opening windows into the black box. J Stat Softw
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Basinger, M., Chen, J., Jeffrey-Coker, F. et al. Jatropha adoption: a statistical observational study of factors influencing Malian farmers’ decision to grow Jatropha. Agroforest Syst 84, 59–72 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10457-011-9426-z
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10457-011-9426-z