Introduction

This chapter is concerned with technology transfer in Indian agriculture. The existing literature on technology transfer has tended to focus on spatial and temporal diffusion, emphasising socio-economic factors such as the role of social networks and social learning. However, we are interested in the facts that travel in association with the technology’s adoption rather than in the transfer of technology per se. From our perspective, different facts travel during the different stages of technology transfer through different spaces. Although such travel involves many different types of facts (technical, procedural, scientific, etc.), we argue that the central fact that needs to travel to potential users in any technological transfer project is that adoption of the new technology will deliver noticeable benefits. The integrity of this fact is dependent on a package of related facts, including those related to the financial costs of adoption, the knowledge needed to implement the technology successfully, access to necessary inputs, the benefits of the technology and the ability of the user to capture those benefits in the form of increased income or profitability.

Technology transfer is a staged process, and one of the first stages involves issues such as how do potential users learn about the benefits of the technology and how do facts travel from the technological or scientific domain to the user domain? Are some vehicles of transmission better than others – and if so, what are the characteristics of those vehicles? Also, this process of travel may not be a linear process – facts may travel in multiple directions, influence the transmission mechanisms and interact with other facts spanning different points in time and space.