Sociology and Space, No. 53-54, 1976.
Original scientific paper
TRACTORIZATION OF PRIVATE AGRICULTURE
Edhem Dilić
Abstract
As a multi-functional machine the tractor is the central and basic innovation
in agricultural production. The degree of its spread on private smallholdings can
therefore serve as an indicator of innovativeness in Yugoslav agriculture in general.
Since by its uses the tractor is functional for the entire farm and not exclusively
for an individual person, this analysis takes the farm as the unit of adoption.
As regards the achieved degree of innovativeness the author distinguishes only
two categories of adoption units (i. e. farms): non-adopters and adopters. The adoption
of production innovations in agriculture proceeds under the influence of certain
social, economic and psychological factors. Therefore, in order to establish
certain basic aspects of the process of adoption of tractors in
private agriculture, the author starts from the assumption that innovativeness
will vary substantially according to the characteristics of the resepctive local
community (i.e. village), the characteristics of the households and farms, and the
characteristics of the heads of households.
Of the contextual correlates of innovativeness the folowing characteristics of
the local community were investigated: distance from the respective centre of
gravity, infrastructural development, socio-political life, and the proportion of
farmers in the village population. The analysis showed that only the characteristic
»proportion of farmers in the village population« has the significant influence
on the innovativeness of households.
Of the structural correlates of innovativeness the following characteristics of
households and farms were examined: size, socio-economic type and standard of
the household, size of the farm, co-operation with the social sector, marketability
of the farm production, existence of an agricultural heir, and adoption of certain
technological innovations.
Cross-tabulation showed that the tractor is adopted in a significantly higher
degree by major households, full-time farming families, and households which are
better equipped with labour-saving devices and installations, households with
larger farms, marketable production, and developed co-operation with the social
sector, and households which have an agricultural heir and which have already
adopted certain technological innovations (selection wheat, hybrid maize, artificial
manure, herbicides and pesticides).
Of the analytical correlates of innovativeness the following characteristic of
the heads of households were examined: sex, age, education, vocation, socio-political
participation, discussions with members of the family of questions referring to the village and agriculture, reading of daily papers, listening to radio programmes,
and watching TV programmes. Subsequent analysis showed that tractor adopters
are, in a significantly high degree, households the heads of which are men
(although the author does believe this to be due to sex difference per se) and heads
of which are farmers by vocation who regularly follow TV programmes. Other
hypothesized correlations were not found to be statistically significant.
Keywords
Hrčak ID:
118999
URI
Publication date:
8.12.1976.
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