Sustainable Agriculture and Innovation Adoption in a Tropical Small-Scale Food Production System: The Case of Yam Minisetts in Jamaica

Clinton L. Beckford
Additional contact information
Clinton L. Beckford: Faculty of Education, University of Windsor, 401 Sunset Avenue, Windsor, Ontario, N9B 3P4, Canada

Sustainability, 2009, vol. 1, issue 1, 1-16

Abstract: Grown in Jamaica since the days of slavery, food yams are major staples in local diets and a significant non-traditional export crop. The cultivation system used today is the same as 300 years ago, with alleged unsustainable practices. A new cultivation system called minisett was introduced in 1985 but the adoption rate twenty four years later is extremely low. This paper analyzes the prospects for the widespread adoption of minisett and sustainable yam cultivation and advocates that greater use be made of farmers’ extensive knowledge of the complex agro-ecological, socio-cultural and economic milieu in which they operate.

Keywords: minisett; innovation diffusion; innovation adoption; sustainable agriculture; yams; yam sticks; local knowledge (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2009
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/1/1/81/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/1/1/81/ (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:jsusta:v:1:y:2009:i:1:p:81-96:d:4386

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

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