7. Case Study: Dominican Republic Tchnology Adoption Program PATCA II12 This section describes the most important aspects of the methodology and the execution associated with the impact evaluation of the Agricultural Innovation Support Program (PATCA II) being implemented in the Dominican Republic. This case study is particularly relevant as it confirms the important link that must exist between the impact evaluation design and the program design. Specifically, this case study presents the first technology transfer program that, to our knowledge, will implement a two-stage randomization in order to evaluate the program direct and indirect impacts. 7.1 The PATCA II Intervention Initially, PATCA was implemented in 2002 with the principal objective to reduce poverty and enhance the efficiency and competitiveness of the Dominican agriculture. Although PATCA can be categorized mainly as a technology transfer program, this initial phase included three components: (i) technology adoption support; (ii) food safety and (iii) technical assistance for institutional reform. The total cost of the program was US$61 million dollars and US$55 million were financed by IDB. The first component, which provided financial support to farmers in order to promote technology adoption, funded five different types of technologies: (i) land leveling; (ii) modernization of water and irrigation techniques; (iii) zero tillage or no-till farming; (iv) pasture conservation, and (v) introduction of new tree species. These technologies sought to assist rice, vegetable, fruit and tuber producers as well as livestock breeders. This component provided a total of 15,882 subsidies, 5,234 (33%) for modernization of irrigation techniques, 2,649 (17%) for land-leveling, 3,567 (22%) for adoption of new tree species, 703 (4%) for zero or nonfarming, and 3,669 (23%) for pasture conservation and rehabilitation (PATCA Executing Unit in Gonzalez, et. al, 2009).
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This section was written by Lina Salazar and Alessandro Maffioli of the Strategy Development Division of the Inter-American Development Bank.
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