Technology is not enough, part 2

Policy makers should give as much emphasis to incentives and affordability of modern inputs as to their efforts to ensure availability of technologies. Non-technical issues are just as important. The wider innovation system, encompassing technology delivery, marketing, and wider institutional and policy issues — most notably land — must be looked at more comprehensively, if productivity boosts in grain staples is to create the wider growth effects in the economy, with advantages for poorer and richer farmers alike.

This time from Ethiopia.

Technology is not enough

Greater investment in improving agricultural technology certainly needs to be part of the solution to meet the rising demand for food. But if spatially connective infrastructure (roads and bridges in particular) and complementary services such as agricultural extension are ignored, these findings from Bangladesh suggest that few farmers in lagging but potentially productive regions will benefit, thwarting the goal of raising agricultural productivity.