Modelling Contingent Technology Adoption in Farming Irrigation Communities

Of all the uses of water, agriculture is the one that requires the greatest proportion of resources worldwide. Consequently, it is a salient subject for environmental policy-making, and adoption of modern irrigation systems is a key means to improve water use efficiency. In this paper we present an agent-based model of the adoption process —known as "modernisation"— of a community constituted by farmer agents. The phenomenon is approached as a contingent innovation adoption: a first stage to reach a collective agreement followed by an individual adoption decision. The model is based on historical data from two Spanish irrigation communities during the period 1975-2010. Results suggest that individual profits and farm extension (as proxy of social influence) are suitable assumptions when modelling the modernisation of communities in regions where agriculture is strongly market-oriented and water is scarce. These encouraging results point towards the interest of more sophisticated socio-cognitive modelling within a more realistic socio-hydrologic context.