The introduction of sustainable practices is considered a win-win strategy for low-income countries because of its potential to simultaneously improve food security and address environmental issues. Despite the numerous studies that focus on the adoption of technological innovations, little work has been done on the socio-psychological behaviour of farmers with regard to sustainable practices. This study investigates smallholder farmers' intentions towards two practices: minimum tillage and row planting. The decomposed theory of planned behaviour is used as a theoretical framework to analyse the intentions. The findings reveal that attitudes and normative issues positively explain farmers' intentions to adopt both practices. Perceived control also has a positive significant effect on the intention to apply minimum tillage. When the intention is formed, farmers are expected to carry out their intention when opportunities arise. Moreover, perceived usefulness, social capital, and perceived ease of operation are also significant predictors of farmers' attitudes. Furthermore, social capital and training are factors that positively affect the normative issue, which in turn also positively mediates the relationship between training, social capital and intention. Finally, it is shown that neither the perceived resources nor information from the media significantly affect farmers' intentions. This paper thus confirms that social capital, personal efficacy, training and perceived usefulness play significant roles in the decision to adopt sustainable practices. In addition, willingness to adopt seems to be limited by negative attitudes and by weak normative issues. Therefore, to improve adoption of sustainable practices by smallholder farmers, attention should be given to socio-psychological issues. This could lead to improvements in farm productivity and enhance the livelihoods of smallholders.

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The potential of smallholder-irrigated agriculture to enhance food security and improve livelihoods has led the government of Ethiopia to invest significantly in irrigation establishment. This article aims to investigate the impact of small-scale irrigation on households' livelihood. To deal with the problems of purposive targeting and self-selection which are likely to occur for this type of intervention, we use a sophisticated econometric technique called 'propensity score matching' to study this impact. Our findings confirm the presence of a statistically significant difference in income, overall expenditure, asset accumulation and expenditures on agricultural inputs between the treated and control households. In contrast, no statistically significant differences in livestock resources, food consumption, and expenditure on education and health were found. Furthermore, the proportion of poor is respectively 20 and 30% for the treated and control households. So, overall it can be concluded that participation in the small-scale irrigation has robust and positive effect on most of the livelihood indices and that an expansion of irrigation schemes is a good strategy in the water-stressed and drought-prone areas of Ethiopia. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. RÉSUMÉLe potentiel de l'agriculture irriguée à améliorer la sécurité alimentaire et améliorer les moyens de subsistance des petits exploitants a conduit le gouvernement éthiopien à investir de manière significative dans l'établissement d'irrigation. Cet article vise à étudier l'impact de l'irrigation à petite échelle sur les moyens de subsistance des ménages. Pour faire face aux problèmes de ciblage téléologique et d'auto-sélection qui sont susceptibles de se produire pour ce type d'interventions, nous utilisons une technique économétrique sophistiqué appelée score de propension pour étudier cet impact. Nos résultats confirment la présence d'une différence statistiquement significative dans le revenu, les dépenses globales, l'accumulation d'actifs et des dépenses sur les intrants agricoles entre les ménages traités et de contrôle. Nous n'avons par contre pas trouvé de différence sur ressources en cheptel, la consommation alimentaire et les dépenses d'éducation et de santé. En outre, la proportion de pauvres est respectivement 20 et 30% pour les ménages traités et de contrôle. Donc, dans l'ensemble, on peut conclure que la participation à l'irrigation à petite échelle a un effet robuste et positif sur la plupart des indices de subsistance et que l'expansion des systèmes d'irrigation est une bonne stratégie pour gérer les stress hydrique et la sécheresse régions d'Ethiopie.

Despite the presence of several studies on technology adoption, there are limited empirical studies on how socio-psychological factors affect the adoption of sustainable agriculture. Therefore, this paper investigates how socio-psychological factors-such as social capital, information, attitudes, efficacy, and aversion-affect smallholder farmers’ decisions to adopt sustainable land management practices, such as agroforestry systems, organic compost, and crop rotation with legumes. Cross-sectional data are collected from 350 randomly selected farm households using a pre-tested and structured questionnaire. A multivariate probit model is used to investigate factors that influence the probability of adopting these practices. The ordered probit model is also applied to identify and analyze the determinants of the number (intensity) of land management practices adopted. The findings indicate that nearly half of the farmers have adopted these land management practices to improve soil fertility, enhance water retention capacity, and increase productivity. It is also found that attitudes, information, education, group membership, relational capital, risk attitudes, and labor supply significantly affect the probability of adopting these agricultural practices. The estimates of the ordered probit model also indicate that extension services, risk attitudes, group membership, relational capital, education and labor supply are major determinants of the number of land management practices used. However, financial resources, biophysical factors and some demographic factors are found to have an insignificant effect on sustainable agriculture adoption. This implies that when it is necessary to promote sustainable land management practices and to stimulate smallholder farmers to adopt such practices in isolation or combination, specific strategies should be designed to improve awareness, build positive attitudes, reduce risk aversion, strengthen formal organizations, and empower endogenous groups (or informal institutions).