CHAPTER 5 DISCUSSION Hypothesis One 1. A relationship will exist between farmers' socioeconomic characteristics and their use of TAP. The results show that there is a relationship between some of the measured socioeconomic characteristics and farmers' use of TAP. Socioeconomic characteristics have some predictive value as a model of Cherokee farmers' choice of farming practices. Age, years farming, hours per week farming, number of acres cultivated and selling of crops were the only socioeconomic characteristics that illustrate a difference between TAP user groups. Adesina and Chianu's (2002) and Pattnayak, Mercer, Sills and Yang's (2003) research observations show that farmer's age and experience farming positively correlate with farmer adoption behavior. The latter research implies that experience farming can alleviate unknown risk and uncertainty in the market environment and new technologies. Other research (Casey, 2004; Mathijs, 2003) indicates that there is no correlation or a negative correlation between agricultural adoption behavior and age and farming experience. Casey (2004) says that, although older farmers have more experience farming, they may be more set in their ways and less willing to adopt new technologies. My results do not support this latter explanation. The low TAP user group is older and more experienced in farming than the high TAP user group. The average age of low TAP user group is 65 and years of experience is 50 years. The green revolution took place in