Abstract This article analyses the drivers of adoption of irrigation systems by orange growers in the State of Sao Paulo, Brazil. Given the scarcity of similar studies focusing on the Brazilian orange sector, the starting point of our article is the estimation of a translog production function to assess the impact of irrigation on the production of a sample of 98 Sao Paulo’s orange growers. The results showed that irrigation adoption increased orange production of the farms in the sample by 21.9 %, ceteris paribus. Despite the potential benefits of irrigation, adoption was rather low: only 24.6 % of the orange orchards area in the Brazilian orange belt was irrigated in 2015. Starting from this apparent paradox, we argue that the information asymmetry and conflicts observed in the contractual relationship between growers and juice processing firms reduce the incentives for the adoption of technologies in the Brazilian orange sector. We apply probit models to the same sample to test four hypotheses on drivers of the decision to adopt irrigation. The results of our empirical analysis show that the use of contracts in transactions with processing firms negatively affect the adoption of irrigation. The analysis also identifies other variables that influence positively the adoption of irrigation: participation in producers’ associations, participation in courses on irrigation and dependence on the income from the orange orchard. The results of this study suggest that the design of policies aimed at fostering irrigation adoption must consider potential bargaining power asymmetries in the relationships between the users of irrigation and the buyers of their agricultural production.

中文翻译：

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合同在巴西橙子种植者采用灌溉方面的作用

摘要 本文分析了巴西圣保罗州柑橘种植者采用灌溉系统的驱动因素。鉴于关注巴西橙子部门的类似研究很少，我们文章的出发点是估计 translog 生产函数，以评估灌溉对 98 个圣保罗橙子种植者样本生产的影响。结果表明，在其他条件不变的情况下，采用灌溉使样本农场的橙子产量增加了 21.9%。尽管灌溉有潜在的好处，但采用率相当低：2015 年，巴西橙子带中只有 24.6% 的橙园面积得到了灌溉。 从这个明显的悖论开始，我们认为，在种植者和果汁加工公司之间的合同关系中观察到的信息不对称和冲突减少了巴西橙子行业采用技术的动力。我们将概率模型应用于同一样本，以检验关于采用灌溉决策的驱动因素的四个假设。我们的实证分析结果表明，在与加工企业的交易中使用合同会对灌溉的采用产生负面影响。分析还确定了对采用灌溉方式产生积极影响的其他变量：参加生产者协会、参加灌溉课程以及对橙园收入的依赖。