Determinants of Farmers’ Awareness and Adoption of Extension Recommended Wheat Varieties in the Rainfed Areas of Pakistan

Abstract

Scientific evidence suggests that there is room for eradicating poverty and hunger by increasing food production through the adoption of modern agricultural practices by farmers. This study aimed, first, to explore the relationship between the farmers’ awareness and adoption of improved wheat varieties. Second, it aimed to find the key factors that govern the farmers’ awareness and adoption of extension-recommended innovations in the rainfed cropping system of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. Data were collected from 395 respondents. A binary logit model was used to analyze the effect of the farmers’ socioeconomic and farm-specific characteristics on their awareness and adoption of the extension-suggested wheat varieties. Moreover, qualitative data from 40 key informants were collected for in-depth analysis. The results show a strong association between the farmers’ awareness of a technology (improved wheat varieties) and its adoption. The results of the logit model show that their extension contacts, income from agriculture, and access to credit positively affected the farmers’ awareness, whereas their education and household sizes negatively affected their awareness. Moreover, the factors that positively influenced the farmers’ decision to adopt the technology included the extension contact, the confidence in the extension, the risk-bearing attitude, and the credit access, whereas the household size and education negatively affected it. The results of the key informant interviews reveal that the high incidence of poverty, the low soil fertility, the farmers’ inability to make effective decisions, the lack of accurate weather predictability in the rainfed farming system, the lack of government interest, and the asymmetric information in the inputs markets contributed to the farmers’ low levels of awareness and to their poor adoption of improved agricultural technologies. These results indicate that any intervention aimed at the awareness and adoption by farmers of improved technologies, such as new wheat varieties, should recognize the heterogeneity in the farmers’ socioeconomic and farm-specific characteristics.

Do smallholder farmers belong to the same adopter category? An assessment of smallholder farmers innovation adopter categories in Ghana

“…Conversely, Ullah et al (2022) employed logistic regression to model farmers' innovation adoption decisions; they found education to negatively influence farmers' innovation adoption decisions in Pakistan. The importance of formal education on farmers' innovation adoption has given mixed results from past studies.…”

“…Rogers (2003) described innovators under the adopter category as young, rich, and educated, implying that age, income, and education play a crucial role in innovation adoption. However, research by (Ullah et al, 2022;Staddon 2020;Mwangi and Kariuki, 2015) found no relationship between one or more of these socioeconomic variable (age, income, education) and innovation adoption. Also, other studies on innovation adoption focused on a segment of the adopter categories, as can be found in (S€ a€ aksj€ arvi and Hell en, 2019;Vainauskas, 2003;Agarwal et al, 1998); also on the adoption of agricultural technology in small-scale farming, on a broader perspective (Atsriku, 2020), and on gender dimension of technology adoption (Quaye et al, 2021).…”

Nexus between Awareness, Perception and Adoption of Recommended Technologies: Evidences from Smallholder Rubber Cultivation

“…Many researchers have reported that awareness is a precursor to adoption. If the awareness of the technology is low, farmers are slow to adopt it (Fisher et al, 2018;Ullah et al, 2022). However, research on farmer perception of agricultural innovation and its role in adoption is scarce (Meshesha et al, 2022).…”

The effect of COVID-19 pandemic on market integration: Evidence from vegetable farmers in Pakistan

“…The farming community suffered during COVID-19: the timely purchase of modern agricultural inputs was prevented [ 15 ] and profitability was inhibited [ 16 ]. Along with COVID-19 restrictions that affected farmers’ markets integration, the farmers not only received inadequate extension services and faced imperfect inputs and outputs markets, but the poor infrastructure in rural areas prevented speedy adaptation to the circumstances [ 3 , 8 , 17 ]. Farmers, especially vegetable farmers, were affected by the disruptions to supplies of improved seeds and chemical fertilizers [ 2 ].…”