Analysis of Adoption of Biological Control practices in Tomato Farms of Jiroft County Using Duration Analysis

Abstract

The human need for food, during recent decades has increased dependence on pesticides and chemical pesticides. Due to the destructions effect of chemical toxins, adoption of bio and non-bio technologies Identical with the sustainable agriculture such as pest control by natural enemies, is taken into consideration by agriculture researchers. so, the process of adopting biological control technology is investigated in the farms of tomato in Jiroft County during the period of 2010 until 2014. Why some farmers are faster to adopt this technology is investigated using duration analysis, which allows the timing of an event to be explored in a dynamic framework. The empirical results highlight the negative importance of age variable, and positive effect of farm size and attitude to control biologic. In this study due to the use of survival analysis model it was possible to evaluate the effect of time dependent variables include product price and years of knowledge about control biologic on speed of adoption. Therefore, it became clear that if in a year the price of the product is increase the probability of adoption is increased as well as if the farmer has been informed about biological control technology earlier the technology adoption rate increases.

Keywords

• biological control
• Safe food
• Survival models
• technology adoption