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Extension services play a crucial role by improving skills and access to information that result in greater farm level innovations, especially on family farms which are the predominant form of agriculture in the world. This study analyzed the connection between strategies implemented by extension services and technology adoption on family farms. Using the case of the Servicio de Asesoría Técnica (SAT) Program, we developed a bottom-up adoption index (AI) for vegetable and berry farmers in three regions of Central Chile. We implemented 10 focus groups totaling 101 participants, all recipients of technical assistance from private extension companies (PECs) funded by the SAT Program. After the focus group sessions, we surveyed participating farmers to gather information on socio-economic attributes and adopted technologies. Using cluster analysis, we identified three groups of farmers according to their adoption intensity. The results indicate that extension strategies used by PECs have distinct effects on the adoption of new technologies. Higher adoption indexes were positively associated with the duration of the extension visits, the number of group activities, and the use of incentives and credits provided by the Chilean government. The value of production and farm size were positively associated with adoption intensity.

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Good leaders can greatly influence the effective governance of water resources, however, how their attributes relate to group cooperation in Water User Associations (WUAs) remains an open question. Using the case of Chile, we explore the factors of three non-cooperative behaviors in WUAs by performing a two-stage cluster analysis. The results describe four clusters that differ in structural and human characteristics, where highly cooperative WUAs are characterized by having presidents who dedicate more time to their duties, are more active in applying for governmental subsidies, are embedded in social organizations, have high levels of bridging social capital, and have a positive attitude toward the presidency. Our results add to the limited empirical knowledge about the role of leadership in fostering cooperation in the use of common-pool resources. This article sheds light on this matter as the results suggest that policy interventions should aim at strengthening social capital and providing incentives to increase the time dedication of presidents to the WUAs duties.

The level of satisfaction within a community sharing a common pool resource is essential to strengthening collective actions. In the case of irrigation water, which is becoming a critical resource due to its declining availability, the satisfaction level of the farmers that join community-based water management organizations called Water User Associations may be a relevant factor explaining individuals' cooperation and collective actions. Using a sample of 393 users we performed confirmatory factor analysis, correlational analyses, and multilevel regressions. A composite indicator of user satisfaction showed significant correlations with the positive evaluation of the association staff performance, the effectiveness of monitoring and enforcement, and the confidence that other users do not withdraw more water than they are allocated. Additionally, we found that satisfaction levels for users facing higher and lower water scarcity conditions and found that satisfaction is significantly higher in the latter case. User satisfaction is affected by several structural characteristics of the water channel, users' human and social capital variables. Our study contributes to the existing literature on common resource management in irrigated areas by identifying significant factors of user satisfaction in WUAs under different water availability conditions, which can be used as inputs to improve water governance policies because, ultimately, it is users who determine cooperation rates and willingness to participate in associations collective actions.

In wine grape production, growers decide between alternative management strategies of the vineyard that have direct consequences on competitiveness. The aim of this study is to evaluate the impact on economic performance of four management strategies: training system, reserve quality production, irrigation method, and mechanization of labors. The data used in the study comes from face-to-face interviews to 336 wine grape growers of Central Chile, which was complemented with climatic variables retrieved from Geographic Information Systems. A log-log regression model of total value product (TVP) for the main variety grown in the vineyard was estimated, using production factors, vineyards’ attributes, management strategies and climate-related conditions as explanatory variables. An interesting contribution of this study is the identification of TVP functions for land, fertilizers, fungicides, other agrochemicals, labor, and age of vines. Our results show that the training system has the most impact on TVP, where tendone-trained vineyards demonstrated 63% higher TVP than those vertically trained when holding all other variables constant. Reserve quality production also has a positive effect on TVP, increasing it by 25% compared to vineyards producing varietal quality grapes. In contrast, the use of pressurized irrigation systems and mechanization in harvesting do not present a significant effect on TVP. The findings of this paper represent an advance in the understanding of the economic performance factors associated with wine grape growing and could serve to guide on-farm decisions and sectoral policies in pursuing the competitive development of wine grape growers.

A typology is proposed regarding the modes of access to water for the rural population in Chile as well as four explanatory dimensions of its heterogeneity. The typology emerges from a systematic review of the literature and an analysis of quantitative data based on rural water organizations' databases. The modes of access are defined by the following five criteria: their socio-technical system, their type of management, their level of spatial action, the source of their financing, and the type of technical assistance they received. The findings dispute the systemic vision of access to water in rural areas and invite us to consider the structural heterogeneity in regulations and public policies to guarantee the human right to water.