Serlie Barroga-Jamias
Institute of Plant Breeding, College of Agriculture
University of the Philippines Los Baños
doi.org/10.57043/transnastphl.1998.5827
Abstract
The communication networks among 173 rice-mungbean fanners in two rural villages (rainfed and irrigated) in Pangasinan were analyzed and related to their adoption of improved rice-mung bean technology. The incorporation of network variables with nonnetwork variables (e.g., socio-economic, agricultural, etc.) greatly contributed to understanding the significantly higher adoption in Nancayasan compared to Carosucan. The Nancayasan fanners had significantly higher spatial distance scores, or they interacted with more dispersed farmers within the village, and had higher betweenness centrality scores or there were more infonnation ‘brokers’ or liaisons that mediated agricultural information flow in the village. Nancayasan is also near the Urdaneta market where farmers actively seek vital market information and supply of new varieties from market traders. The blockmedelling analysis vividly highlighted shortcomings of the diffusionist paradigm’s concept of information flow, from innovators/leaders to others throughout the community. Results revealed the potential disadvantage of groups of farmer cooperators turning into a “select group”, isolated from other groups in the community and having little or no reciprocated ties with them, hence limiting the spread of adoption. In the stepwise regression analysis, five social network variables influenced adoption: connectedness; reciprocity; and heterogeneity in television ownership, radio use, and credit availment.