Farmers’ poor levels of knowledge are related to low rates of efficiency and productivity in milk production in Brazil due to problems of information diffusion and innovation. This paper set out to evaluate to what extent efficiency in production and the position of dairy farmers in the social network, formed by the Program for the Development of Dairy Farming (PDPL), affect the diffusion of technical information and technologies in the production chain. The data used in the study were made available by the PDPL technical staff and refer to 31 dairy farmers, located in municipalities in the Zona da Mata micro region of the state of Minas Gerais, who participated in the Program in 2016. Through Social Network Analysis, Data Envelopment Analysis and Agent-Based Modeling, a diffusion model was structured into which information on the technical efficiency of the dairy farmers was incorporated, as well as information about their relationship pattern. The efficiency analysis showed benefits when inefficient farmers sought best practices and the optimal production scale. Through the model created, it was found that the selection of technically efficient dairy farmers for the diffusion process is a good policy, but when the adoption pay-off is low and resources are scarce, selecting central farmers would be the more appropriate policy. Additionally, it was shown that the choice of the initial adopters, adoption and non-adoption pay-off values, and the relationship pattern all influence the diffusion process. The study, thus, suggests a new way of choosing policies to accelerate the diffusion of information and technology in typical dairy systems in Brazil and other countries.

由于信息传播和创新问题，农民知识水平低与巴西牛奶生产效率和生产率低下有关。本文着手评估奶业发展计划（PDPL）形成的生产效率和奶农在社会网络中的地位在多大程度上影响了技术信息和技术在生产链中的传播。该研究中使用的数据由PDPL技术人员提供，涉及位于Zona da Mata市政当局的31个奶农米纳斯吉拉斯州的微小地区，该地区于2016年参加了该计划。通过社交网络分析，数据包络分析和基于代理的建模，构建了一个扩散模型，其中纳入了有关奶农技术效率的信息，以及有关他们的关系模式的信息。当效率低下的农民寻求最佳实践和最佳生产规模时，效率分析显示出好处。通过创建的模型，发现在扩散过程中选择技术上高效的奶农是一个很好的政策，但是当采用收益低且资源稀缺时，选择中央奶农将是更合适的政策。此外，研究还表明，最初采用者的选择，采用率和非采用率的收益值，关系模式都会影响扩散过程。因此，该研究提出了一种选择政策的新方法，以加速巴西和其他国家/地区典型乳制品系统中信息和技术的传播。