Assessing the Economic Impact of Technology Adoption in Horticulture: Concepts and Case Study of ‘Dogridge’ Root Stock Adoption in Grape Cultivation in India

Assessment of economic impact of technology adoption is of significance for quantifying the benefits and return on investment in order to further facilitates prioritization of investment criteria. Though several partial measures are in use, they lack uniformity and acceptance by funding agencies from across countries. The present study provides the standard conceptual framework for economic impact assessment of technology adoption and further demonstrates the usefulness of a universally accepted ‘economic surplus’ method by quantifying the economic impact of wide spread adoption of root stock technology in the production of perennial horticultural crops like grape under three important growing regions from India. Besides providing a vivid gist of analysis, this paper also quantified the total economic surplus generated due to the adoption of a technology that is critical for grape production under semi-arid tropics. According to this study, the technology adoption contributed to about 15 to 20 % productivity enhancement and more than 40 percent increase in gross realization at individual farm level. The aggregate level economic impact measured using the Economic Surplus method, indicated an aggregate level total economic surplus due to technology adoption of Rs. 8844.35 crore between 1997 and 2007-08. The change in producer surplus worked out to Rs. 804.03 crore, resulting in an internal rate of return of 40% and a benefit to cost ratio of 186. The results thus quantify the aggregate benefits accrued due to technology adoption and also suggest a methodology that could help justify the enhanced investment into horticultural crop production systems.