More than two-thirds of the national workforce even today depends, directly or indirectly, on agriculture which continues to generate about one-fourth of the GDP in several developing countries. Increased agricultural productivity and profitability, especially in resource-poor areas, are crucial to rural poverty alleviation and improved welfare of rural women and other disadvantaged groups. In this context, exploring the possibilities of new technology and better management practices at the farm level plays a vital role in both national and international agricultural research. Agricultural technical innovations usually have a top down approach in the sense that scientists design the experiments concerning a new technology in their laboratories and on farmers’ field trials. Though scientists consult farmers at some stages while designing trials, mainly laboratory results dominate the technology.

Drawing on the long-existing arguments regarding the need for exploring agricultural technologies and better management practices at the far level, while taking into account farmers’ experiences to improve and sustain agricultural growth in Asia, this book is a set of seven research papers submitted at the 26th International Association of Agricultural Economists (IAAE) conference in 2006. These papers provide a policy setting framework to examine the relevant technology issues in developing countries’ agriculture. The topics under discussion include the theoretical link between output growth and technology, the need for improvement in the approach to developing new technologies by combining both scientific and indigenous knowledge, and the manner in which farmers in certain developing Asian countries have adapted the existing technologies to best suit their production environment.

The environment of agricultural production has been changing constantly due to various factors such as variations in governments’ macroeconomic policies and climate changes. This means that there is a need for an experimental approach of constantly testing new possibilities and combinations to match the changing environment. It may be difficult for scientists with a formal approach to technology development to keep up with the constantly changing production environment in several countries and to supply suitable agricultural technologies towards sustaining farmers’ income levels. In this context, the farmers’ indigenous knowledge becomes critical in tackling some of the issues that may arise due to changing agricultural production environment.

For example, as a consequence of the constantly changing production environment due to climate changes in the Myemensingh region of Bangladesh, farmers have been constantly adjusting the sequence of cropping, planting, sometimes three, sometimes two, crops a year, and incorporating new varieties as they become available. Scientists can take note of this indigenous knowledge while developing crop varieties to suit such variations of production environment elsewhere. When the technology consists of more complex farming systems, understanding the indigenous knowledge of the farmers is important. For example, agroforestry and other intercropping farming systems are so complex that the formal experimental approaches of scientists have proven to be less realistic. On the other hand, farmers, who have the potential for evaluating these kinds of systems more accurately, understand and adapt their farming strategies to meet the changing needs.

Agriculture in Developing Countries: Technology Issues presents an experimental approach of testing new possibilities and combinations to match the changes taking place in the agricultural production environment of developing countries. While emphasising the importance of combining scientific and indigenous knowledge, this book argues that sustained agricultural development can be achieved only by promoting farmers’ participation in technology development. It also provides empirical evidence for this, using recent primary data from across Asia. q

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