Determination of Paddy Rice Yield in the Context of Farmers' Adoption of Multiple Technologies in Colombia

Under the pressure of competitiveness and climate change, the rice sector has adopted multiple agricultural technologies to improve productivity, reduce production costs, and be environment-friendly. The Massive technology adoption program (AMTEC) is an example of Colombian rice production. Although all components of AMTEC have been approved to improve the rice yield in demo farms, these impacts, along with other factors under actual farm conditions, are unclear. Data were obtained from the 2016 National Rice Census data of 20,174 rice production units. This study determines the effects of each AMTEC technology and other agricultural factors on paddy rice yield under actual farm conditions using the multiple regression analysis with a backward stepwise method. The average paddy rice yield was 5.508 t ha(-1) with a considerable variation across the whole country (0.110-12.187 t ha(-1)). The results showed that 69.47% of the variation in paddy rice yield was influenced by rice cultivation regions, farm size, technical assistance, applying chisel plow, having a ban, having an irrigation system, and the number of nitrogen fertilizer applications. Landplane, certified seeds, and drill sowing were the three components of the AMTEC program that contributed to an increase in rice yield. Notably, the paddy rice yield was 0.361 t ha(-1) with an additional N fertilizer application or the farm under the irrigation system. It also increased from 0.404 to 0.362 t ha(-1) for the farm that used drill sowing compared to the farm that used benchmark technologies. The results also showed that the farm that received technical assistance had a 0.150 t ha(-1) compared to their counterparts who did not, and there was a significant difference among its sources. Therefore, to improve the rice yield, the above-mentioned multiple technologies should be widely disseminated. Additionally, the farms should receive technical assistance, particularly from private companies such as supply distributors or milling companies.