“Technological Depreciation Cost is Minimum in Third World Countries Rather Than Developed World”

Q. “Technological Depreciation cost is minimum in Third World countries rather than Developed World” – discuss in context of agro-technology?

Technological depreciation cost is minimum in the third world countries and the substitution cost of technology is higher. And also third world countries use particular technology for a long time rather then substitute it. On the other hand in the developed world a technology is replaced by a new one as soon as a new technology developed. And as the replacement of old technology is slow in third world countries, the technological depreciation cost is minimum rather than developed world. A sustained expansion of scientific and technological activities applied to the process of development is not a serious problem for the developed countries where required technological competence, infrastructure as well as the climate conducive to the growth and expansion of technology exists. But for the developing countries as well as the countries of the third world, efforts to develop indigenous technology capacity are often impeded due to problems emanating from

• The existing conditions of different components of technology;
• The national climate in which the technology is to grow and operate; and
• The dependence on external assistance

The policy planners and decision makers must have a clear understanding of all these constrains and problems so that intervention can be made judiciously at the right spot in the efforts to build the national technology capability.

• And another problem which is responsible for this can be described as:

On the three approaches to raise the country’s overall level of technological sophistication, 1) buy the entire gamut of available technologies; 2) produce all technologies by self; and 3) buy some and produce some, developed countries generally uses two of the three processes such as 1) produce all technologies by self; and 3) buy some and produce some. But the third world countries generally buy all the technologies for their countries. Technologies only sold to those who can pay for it and it is very expensive. So the Substitution cost is higher in third world countries.

Besides these the technological diffusion are tough in agricultural sector. As the poor people are generally involved in agricultural production and they can’t afford technologies in production and the reason behind it is the economical barrier, lack of information, low adaptive power as the farmers don’t have the expertise of a new technology etc. so substitution rate is very low in agricultural sector, and technological Depreciation cost is minimum in Third World countries rather than Developed World in agricultural sector.