Predicting Adoption of Innovations by Farmers: What is Different in Smallholder Agriculture?

Rick S. Llewellyn and Brendan Brown

Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy, 2020, vol. 42, issue 1, 100-112

Abstract: Predictions of the speed and extent of adoption of new agricultural practices and technologies are needed to inform decisions and plans in agricultural policy, research and extension. Using an existing tool for predicting the adoption of agricultural innovations in developed countries as the starting point, we identify a number of distinctive features of smallholder agriculture in developing countries that affect agricultural adoption. Additional factors that need to be considered when making predictions of adoption by smallholder populations include: They may be relatively more heterogeneous in their constraints, capabilities, resources, attitudes and priorities; they may be more influenced by particular cultural norms; they may prioritize subsistence over profits; they may be less reliant on agriculture as their primary source of income; they may have relatively high future discount rates; nonlandowner farmers may be less able to capture the benefits resulting from an innovation; and there may be lower and slower diffusion of information across the farming population, with more variable extension quantity and quality.

Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (15)

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1002/aepp.13012

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:wly:apecpp:v:42:y:2020:i:1:p:100-112

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy from John Wiley & Sons
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().