Human capital and agricultural growth in Bangladesh

Results of OLS as well as tobit model showed a significant positive effect of human capital on irrigation, modern variety seed (MV), and chemical fertilizer technology adoption. This indicates that the higher the level of human capital, the higher the level of adaption of these components of modern technologies. OLS as well as maximum likelihood estimates of the production function show that human capital has a significant negative effect on aggregate crop output while technological index has a highly significant positive effect on aggregate crop output. This indicates that keeping other input use level the same, if human capital of a region increases, the aggregate crop output decreases. On the other hand, if the technology level of a region increases, the aggregate crop output level increases. On farm operators' education, tobit analysis on a seasonal basis, show that farm operators' education has significant positive effect on MV adoption in both seasons and on total MV adoption. Farm operators' education plays a more important role on MV adoption under a risky and complex environment than under favorable environment. Cobb-Douglas production function analysis reveal that farm operators' education has no significant effect on rice output. On the other hand, technology index had a highly significant positive effect on rice output. This indicates that the higher the level of MV adoption, the higher the level of rice output. Furthermore, this indicates that farmer operators' education increase rice output indirectly through technology adoption, but not as a separate input. Direct and indirect method of efficiency analysis show that farmer operators' education has no significant effect on technical efficiency in rice production. This finding is consistent with the findings of the macro-level analysis reported earlier. Present education structure in Bangladesh is not agriculture oriented. Therefore, educated farmers have no more special skill or interest in efficiently managing technology or other resources used for rice production than his non-educated counterpart