Mahaabo and Rice Diffusion McLean-Parks and the Rice Gift

1. Mahaabo and Rice Diffusion McLean-Parks and the Rice Gift Data Collected Although our team wasn’t able to complete our project in entirety, we were able to gather interesting data on the two villages we did visit. In the first village, denoted as village 1, 7% of all farmers used three month rice. These farmers have had knowledge about three month rice for approximately five and one half years. The main reason this village did not adopt three month rice on a larger scale was due to their rice fields not having the ability to control rain water. In the second village, denoted as village 2, nearly 33% had adopted three month rice. The farmers of village 2 had had knowledge of three month rice for over fifteen years, and their rice fields were generally suitable for planting three month rice. The Rice Gift In the fall of 2008 a rice gift was given to the village of Nocialles, Madagascar. The rice gift came after a tropical storm that devastated a large portion of Madagascar’s south eastern coast. Noscialles was a particular village that was especially impacted, with the village losing its entire rice crop. As rice is often the only form of sustenance for the villages of Madagascar, the devastation was tremendous. The entire village of Noscialles lives under the poverty line, and it was very likely the villagers of Nocialles would have been unable to survive if outside intervention would have not taken place. This outside intervention came in the form of a rice seed gift given by Washington University in St. Louis Professor Judi McClean-Parks. The rice seed was given to Missouri Botanical Gardens to best distribute amongst villagers of Noscialles. The rice seed given was a particular form of rice known widely as “three month rice,” which has a shorter growing period of three months. This rice is relatively unknown to many villages of Madagascar, which are prone to use the traditional “six month rice.” Beyond the differences in growing time, there is a difference in stalk height at time of harvest, which is problematic for farmers with an inability to control water levels. Three month rice is also approximately four times more expensive than six month rice. Technological Diffusion Conclusions • Flood Control Project • Why it is crucial • Flood control is the prerequisite and fundamental resolution to resolve the 3 month rice distribution and promotion in Mahabo and the similar areas in Madagascar. • Current information • The only reason villagers give up planting 3 month rice is that the 6 month rice having longer and higher stalk makes it have more chances of survival in the water after the event of heavy rainstorms. • Implementation and coordination • Government and the nonprofit organization may set up cost-sharing fund for building small dams for flood control, drainage improvement and grade stabilization. • Upstream flood control dams can be built to control the flood after the heavy rainstorm. • To encourage them to participate in the dam construction, the rice seeds can be distributed in exchange for the villagers’ effort exertion. • Crop Insurance Policy Program • Program expectation • The program is designed to restore the families and communities to pre-tropical storm levels of existence, to increase food supply, and improve resilience to future shocks food emergency crises. • Implementation • The Actual Production History policies will be adopted which insure producers against yield losses due to natural causes. • The villager selects the amount of average yield he or she wishes to insure. • Indemnities are calculated by multiplying this difference by the insured percentage of the established price selected when crop insurance was purchased. • Villagers take the responsibility to report acreage accurately, meet policy deadlines, pay premiums when due, and Report losses immediately. • Planting Tools Rental Program • Program expectation • The proposed program is to aid in improving the planting efficiency at the family and community level in Mahabo and similar areas in Madagascar. • Implementation • Villager need sign a tool rental agreement with the company to use the planting tools. • Villagers will pay the lease when he returns the tools in the end of one season or one year. • Villagers assume responsibility for loss of, or damage to, said equipment, and assume responsibility for the repair expense. • Normal wear and tear is the company’s responsibility. • The villagers can get the tool with a reasonable discount due to the wearing conditions. Proposed Analysis and Methodology Our team proposed a probit regression analysis to determine significant characteristics and attributes for technological diffusion. In statistical analysis, a probit model is one specification of a binary response model. The probit regression specification was chosen due to the nature of the data our team was attempting to collect. Farmers have a binary response to plant rice three month rice or not plant three month rice. We posited that this choice was contingent on several characteristics and risk preferences, which we designated as our independent variables. As it would be impractical to gather data on all of the attributes and characteristics that would help describe risk aversion and willingness to adopt new technologies our team developed a succinct survey which would gather proxy variables to be used in our analysis. Our survey questions are included below: