For the purpose of this study, adopters are classified as
farmers who used improved maize germplasm (creolized, hybrids
and open pollinated), while nonadopters are referred
to as farmers who planted only traditional varieties or landraces.
As shown in Table 1, about 80% of farmers in Chiapas
adopted improved varieties, compared to 32% in
Oaxaca. Improved germplasm, and in particular, hybrids appear
to be predominant in Chiapas while creolized variety
predominate in Oaxaca. For example, about 48% of the
farmers adopted hybrids in Chiapas, compared to only 4%
of farmers in Oaxaca. While less than 10% of farmers
adopted open pollinated variety in Chiapas, the corresponding
figure for Oaxaca was about 1%. The development of
agricultural markets has contributed to the adoption of improved
varieties and particularly the use of hybrids in Chiapas
(Keleman, Hellin, & Bellon, 2009). The empirical
analysis therefore considers adoption of all improved varieties
(creolized, hybrids and open pollinated) against landraces
for both Chiapas and Oaxaca and then individual
analyses for hybrids in Chiapas and creolized maize in Oaxaca.