The Adoption and Impact of Soil and Water Conservation Technology: An Endogenous Switching Regression Application

This paper identifies the factors that affect farmers’ decisions to adopt soil and water conservation technology in Africa and how this technology impacts farm yields and net returns. This technology is important because it improves efficiency of water use from rainfall—a critical issue in water-deficient Sub-Saharan Africa. An analysis of new data from a survey of 342 rice farmers in northern Ghana shows that farmers’ education, capital and labor constraints, social networks and extension contacts, and farm soil conditions mainly determine adoption of field ridging, and the adoption of this technology increases rice yields and net returns significantly. (JEL Q15, Q24)