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# Agricultural Technology Adoption

# Agricultural Technology Adoption

## Definition

The process by which farmers acquire and implement new cultivation methods, tools, and techniques that increase productivity, which Smith argues was severely limited by medieval institutions that discouraged the capital investment necessary for technological improvement.

## Source Chapter

Book III, Chapter 2

## Context

Smith shows how the lack of incentive for improvement under servile and metayer systems prevented the adoption of better agricultural techniques, arguing that only when farmers have secure tenure and their own capital can they justify the investment in new technologies that increase long-term productivity.

## Economic Domain

Production

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