Adoption of Precision Farming Tools: The Case of Italian Farmers

Yari Vecchio, Giulio Paolo Agnusdei, Pier Paolo Miglietta and Fabian Capitanio
Additional contact information
Yari Vecchio: Department of Veterinary Medical Sciences, University of Bologna, 40064 Ozzano dell’Emilia (Bo), Italy
Giulio Paolo Agnusdei: Department of Innovation Engineering, University of Salento, 73100 Lecce, Italy
Pier Paolo Miglietta: Faculty of Science and Technology, Free University of Bolzano/Bozen, 39100 Bolzano/Bozen, Italy
Fabian Capitanio: Department of Agricultural Economics and Policy, University of Naples Federico II, 80055 Portici NA, Italy

IJERPH, 2020, vol. 17, issue 3, 1-16

Abstract: The process of adopting innovation, especially with regard to precision farming (PF), is inherently complex and social, and influenced by producers, change agents, social norms and organizational pressure. An empirical analysis was conducted among Italian farmers to measure the drivers and clarify “bottlenecks” in the adoption of agricultural innovation. The purpose of this study was to analyze the socio-structural and complexity factors that affect the probability to adopt innovations and the determinants that drive an individual’s decisions. Preliminary results found high levels of adoption among younger farmers, those that had a high level of education, those with high intensity of information, with large farm sizes, and high labor intensity. A logit model was used to understand the role played by labor intensity and perceived in the adoption process. In light of the Common Agricultural Policy Reform post 2020, the findings suggest relevant policy implications, such as the need to increase awareness of PF tools and foster dissemination of information aimed at reducing the degree of perceived complexity.

Keywords: innovation process; awareness; complexity; precision agriculture; farming 4.0; Italy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (18)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/17/3/869/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/17/3/869/ (text/html)

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:gam:jijerp:v:17:y:2020:i:3:p:869-:d:314602

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().