Agricultural technology adoption and land use: evidence for Brazilian municipalities

The Green Revolution spread ‘modern agriculture’ to agricultural areas of the world through the creation of new products and practices. The adoption of agricultural technology brought about great changes in land use. The growth of new cultivated varieties, expansion of existing crops and deforestation are some of the results of this process. This article evaluates the relationship between agricultural technologies (use of agricultural machinery and technical assistance) and land use in Brazil. For that, a spatial econometric model of Simultaneous Equations Systems was used. Our approach highlights the importance of the regional technological pattern (represented by spatially lagged technological variables) on land use. The results corroborate the Borlaug hypothesis that the use of agricultural technologies can enable the maintenance of agricultural areas while preserving forest areas. In addition, with the incorporation of spatially lagged technological variables, we could observe the presence of technological spillovers in agriculture.