Browsing by Subject "Technikfolgenabschätzung"

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Technikfolgenabschätzung und Diffusionsforschung in der Landwirtschaft : Beschreibung, Analyse und Weiterentwicklung im Kontext der Einführung Automatisierter Melkverfahren
(2009) Hein, Klaus A.; Grosskopf, Werner
With the fully automatic milking systems (AMS), we have a technique available to perform the milking process largely independent from the dairy farmer for the first time. On German farms we can observe first utilization of this innovation since the mid-nineties. The complexity of technical innovations in farming that is shown in the AMS has led to a higher interest in the subsequent effects of increased mechanization. A concept of a comprehensive analysis of the technological impact for AMS doesn?t exist so far. Further, AMS have not been described in terms of their classification within innovation-theory yet. At the same time, we get the impression that with the adoption process of the AMS technology, limitations of the traditional demand-based theory become obvious in real-ity. Based on this knowledge, we have to confront the agricultural economic research with the task to carefully investigate the explanatory-models for the development, impact and expan-sion of technical advancement as a basis of a technological assessment for AMS. The objec-tive of this thesis is to investigate the diffusion process of innovations in farming following the example of introducing fully automated milking systems on the market. Coming from observations of innovation processes in the context of various models based on innovation and economic theory, certain approaches and methods for the technological assessment in farming will be discussed against the background of theories to analyse technical advancement. The gained insights will be combined in the development of an overall concept for the analysis of the technical impact for fully automated milking systems. Part of the analysis of technical impact for AMS is to capture the motivation of potential users to adopt this new technology in an empirical study. The available results from literature were supplemented by a written survey of 5.210 dairy farms in four German dairy farming areas. The high investment costs of AMS are the main obstacle for this innovation at the moment. Also the associated costs for adaptation of the milking technique as well as the expectation of a high maintenance effort are important arguments from non-adopters against an investment in AMS. Social arguments are on the other hand the main factors for potential adopters in their decision making process. Possible examples are health aspects or the expected flexibility and time saving. Another reason can be found in the pursuit for greater independence from contract workforce. Therefore it can be shown, that even if the relative cost of purchasing AMS is higher than its relative productivity, we still see adoption of the innovative milking technique based on individual benefits. With the introduction of the individual benefit theory in the decision-making process of competitive techniques, it is now possible to explain the diffusion of AMS, even though the adoption of AMS in terms of maximizing profit would have to be rejected in the single case. A further specification of the decision-making factors with regards to personal benefits could be very helpful for ex ante estimations of diffusion processes in agriculture. For the majority of potential users of AMS we can assume that expectations of performance and profit will outweigh the mostly social and economical benefits expected in the long term. This insight is opposed to the expected S-shaped distribution of AMS adopters. Contrary to the present tradition of demand-based diffusion research, for AMS we were able to prove a diffusion process that is determined more by supply-side. Due to the fact of increased com-plexity of innovations in the diffusion processes, where processes are more and more described in terms of industrial coordination, one should give up the onesided emphasis of socio-economical characteristics of potential adopters in favour of a growing supply-oriented diffusion research. Accordingly, we also have to expand future technological assessments specifically on manufacturers of these innovations. All in all, we are not able to explain the diffusion of AMS sufficiently with the concept of factorprice-induced technical change. This is also shown in the fact that in spite of the introduction of AMS, we don?t necessarily use more effective capital in dairy farms. The question, if we can see AMS as a technical advancement from an economical point of view, is therefore dependent on the individual circumstances for their use on dairy farms. In view of the future development we can therefore realize, that we won?t see big changes in the structure of the dairy farms that can be traced back to the introduction of this technology.