Adoption of agroforestry innovations in the tropics: A review

Mercer, D. Evan

doi:10.1023/b:agfo.0000029007.85754.70

Cited by 173 publications

(147 citation statements)

References 80 publications

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“…The latter are studies conducted after a technology has been adopted by farmers to determine why a technology was adopted, disadopted or not adopted (Lesser et al, 1999;Babu and Rhoe, 2003;Mercer, 2004;Sirrine et al, 2010). Because perennial grains are a technology that is still under development, in this literature review we focus on ex ante adoption studies.…”

Section: Agricultural Technology Adoption Studiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This may extend to assessing and eliciting information on the farmers' perception of the technology (Pingali et al, 2001), and the technology's likely economic impacts before their introduction (Alston et al, 2003); or to discern and define, ex ante, the agronomic, socioeconomic, ecological and biophysical factors that may inform the likelihood to adopt (or not) (Franzel and Scherr, 2002). Ex ante studies are also used to obtain information that improves the performance of the technology, enhances its acceptability, and overall fosters the innovation's successful transference to farmers (Dearing and Meyer, 1994;Franzel and Scherr, 2002); to determine how the innovation potentially fits into farmers' production goals and resource allocation decision-making; and to gather information needed to decide and ensure that the technology in a notional state is appropriate to farmers' specific needs and their farming conditions (Mercer, 2004).…”

Section: Agricultural Technology Adoption Studiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Understanding perennial wheat adoption as a transformative technology: evidence from the literature and farmers

Adebiyi

Olabisi

Snapp

2015

Renew. Agric. Food Syst.

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Perennial grain crops are an example of a 'transformative technology,' in which the functionality and science of the technology differ in a fundamental manner from conventional grain crops. A review of the literature indicates that the motivation for farmer adoption of transformative technologies is complex and poorly understood. At the same time, many studies have found concern and awareness about environmental issues to be significantly and positively correlated with the adoption of no-till agriculture, organic farming and agroforestry. Building on these insights, we conducted an ex ante study of perennial wheat adoption among 11 farmers from Michigan and Ohio. Perennial wheat is not yet commercially available, so a semi-structured interview format was chosen to allow for in-depth discussions of the crop's potential characteristics and uses. Consistent with the literature on transformative technology adoption, farmers who approached us to learn more about perennial grains described soil and environmental quality as their primary motivations for doing so. Farmers suggested a total of ten different uses for perennial wheat, only one of which was mentioned specifically by interviewers. This diversity of proposed uses implied a wide range of criteria for adoption. A striking result was that the ability of perennial wheat to compete with annual wheat on the basis of yield, a focus of researchers, was brought up by only one of the interviewees, as many farmers proposed perennial wheat as a means of solving a problem for which no other crop provided an adequate solution, often by planting perennial wheat on an under-used or marginal area of the farm. This is suggestive that interacting with farmers could alter priorities in perennial grain improvement, as has occurred in other radically transformative agriculture technologies.

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Section: Agricultural Technology Adoption Studiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Agricultural Technology Adoption Studiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Understanding perennial wheat adoption as a transformative technology: evidence from the literature and farmers

Adebiyi

Olabisi

Snapp

2015

Renew. Agric. Food Syst.

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“…Feder and Umali (1993) review the early uses of probability models. Mercer (2004) reviews the use of these models for forestry and agricultural. Factors such as age, gender, education, sources of information, participation in farmer"s organizations, and farm area often are statistically significant in these models depending on the product produced, technology, ethnic group, gender roles, etc.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Assessment of on-farm storage of Bambara groundnut (Vigna subterranea) and roselle grains (Hibiscus sabdariffa) in Niger

Moussa¹,

Lowenberg-DeBoer²,

Sawadogo³

2018

J. Agric. Ext. Rural Dev

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The objective of this study was an assessment of on-farm storage practices for Bambara groundnut and roselle grains in Niger. It is based on a random sample of 164 farmers producing both crops in the Dosso and Maradi regions using a semi-structured questionnaire. Analysis of the data used Probit regression and budgeting. Fifty four percent of respondents use some type of potentially hermetic container for storage of Bambara groundnut and 46% use that type of container for roselle. Potentially, hermetic containers include metal drums, plastic jugs, and single, double and triple layer plastic bags. About 67% of the quantity of Bambara groundnut stored was in potentially hermetic containers and 58% of roselle. Triple layer Purdue Improved Crop Storage (PICS) bags were used mainly by Bambara groundnut farmers storing larger quantities. While only about 10% of the respondents reported storing Bambara groundnuts in PICS bags. The quantity stored by those respondents is quite large, so about 39% of the total quantity of Bambara groundnut stored by the respondents was stored in PICS bags. For roselle, PICS bags were used by 4% of respondents for only 3% of quantity stored. Profitability of using PICS bags for one or two years is comparable to that achieved with the common practice of storing in woven bags with insecticide. While PICS bags use does not increase profitability substantially compared to insecticide use, it does allow the producer to reduce pesticide exposure and the associated health risks.

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“…That is why Eucalyptus species, due to their fast growth, good adaptation to different soils and climatic conditions, and high timber value, are increasingly used for reforestation programs, besides their growing use for pulp/paper companies in Brazil. For an excellent review on agroforestry in tropics, see Mercer [88].…”

Section: Plants For Reforestationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mycorrhizal Interactions for Reforestation: Constraints to Dryland Agroforest in Brazil

Pagano

Cabello

2011

ISRN Ecology

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Reforestation provides restoration of forest ecosystem services including improved soil fertility, which leads to increased productivity and/or sustainability of the system. Trees also increase the average carbon stocks providing wood supply for local communities; however, C sequestration strategies highlight tree plantations without considering their full environmental consequences, such as losses in stream flow. The productivity of a site is a consequence of their physical, chemical, and biological properties, resulting in natural fertile soils or adequate managed soils for improved quality. Thus, it is required to know the variations in the properties of land-use systems for adoptability of agroforestry innovations. The choice of agroforestry tree species (highly mycorrhizal dependent plants should be selected) would have great implications for the manipulation of arbuscular mycorrhizas's species. In dry forest, the inevitable consequence of cutting has been the loss of vegetation cover and insufficient scientific information on the capacity to optimize forest recuperation affects agroforestry adoption. To study the biological properties of soils is now of interest; therefore, this paper reviews the literature that has hitherto been published on mycorrhizal interactions for reforestation and points out the use of mycorrhizal technology as one of the alternatives to improve forest products and environmental quality.

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Adoption of agroforestry innovations in the tropics: A review

Cited by 173 publications

References 80 publications

Understanding perennial wheat adoption as a transformative technology: evidence from the literature and farmers

Understanding perennial wheat adoption as a transformative technology: evidence from the literature and farmers

Assessment of on-farm storage of Bambara groundnut (Vigna subterranea) and roselle grains (Hibiscus sabdariffa) in Niger

Mycorrhizal Interactions for Reforestation: Constraints to Dryland Agroforest in Brazil

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