Abstract
Public-sector agricultural engineering has a vital role in compensating for the externalities and market failures that cause the poor supply of agro-mechanical technologies to small-area rice farmers in Southeast Asia. A review of literature suggests that public-sector agricultural engineering is constrained in meeting farmers’ needs because of the “top-down” and linear approach it adopts to the research, development, and transfer (RDT) of technology. This paper analyzes the RDT processes for three technologies which the public sector has been involved. For the three case studies, the RDT processes are clearly nonlinear, viz. iterative, participatory, and evolutionary. However, this is not usually reflected in the public sector planning of RDT, which is assumed linear. As a result, public-sector participation is inadequate or missing at critical intervention points. A rethink of the way the public sector carries out the RDT of agro-mechanical technology is needed, based on a good understanding of the processes of technology change in South East Asian ricefields. The paper shows that analysis and documentation of RDT process can contribute to this understanding.
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Douthwaite, B. (1999). Increasing the impact of public-sector agricultural engineering research, development, and transfer. In: Balasubramanian, V., Ladha, J.K., Denning, G.L. (eds) Resource Management in Rice Systems: Nutrients. Developments in Plant and Soil Sciences, vol 81. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-5078-1_22
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-5078-1_22
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