Impact of improved agricultural extension approaches on technology adoption: Evidence from a randomised controlled trial in rural Tunisia

Abstract

Summary Low and slow adoption of innovative technologies among smallholder farmers in Tunisia is a key agricultural development problem partly related to the existing technology transfer approach used in the country. The objective of this study is to analyse how to design innovative technology transfer strategies more effective in terms of increasing female and male farmers’ adoption of an improved barley variety, ‘Kounouz’, for small ruminant nutrition. A randomised controlled trial method was used with farmers in Tunisia to implement four extension treatments and to evaluate their effects on adoption of Kounouz. Difference-in-difference estimates showed that intensive agricultural trainings can significantly improve adoption of Kounouz. Technical trainings combined with economic and organisational training and female empowerment courses resulted in a higher adoption rate. This finding has important policy implications, because it suggests that ensuring more widespread and equitable adoption of improved technologies may not require changes in the research system, but rather introduction measures that ensure better access for women to gender-sensitive extension programmes given their positive impacts on technology adoption of the household.

A contextual ICT model to explain adoption of mobile applications in developing countries: A case study of Tunisia

“…On the other hand, increased adoption is the result of the use of ICT in agricultural input information [ 108 , 109 ]. In Tunisia, small-scale farmers stated that after they had started using SMS, they found it easier to access and use farm input information; this is consistent with our results given that 74.58% of the sample declared that they kept SMSs as an information reference [ 29 ].…”

“…In developing countries like Tunisia, interpersonal and informal sources of information were the most preferred, trusted, and used by small-scale farmers [ 2 ]. Neighbours, relatives, friends, and other farmers are frequently the main sources of information used by small farmers [ 29 ].…”

“…So far, there have been very limited studies on mobile application usage by farmers in Tunisia. [ 29 ] reported that the underuse of the Short Message Services (SMS) has led to low adoption of farm input information and technological packages and consequently the benefit of this technology has not been achieved in terms of strengthening improved agricultural extension services for smallholder farmers in Tunisia. Compared to technologies considered more modern and up-to-date, SMS is more adapted to agricultural context characterised by a large part of small farmers (almost 75% less than 10 hectares).…”

“…Compared to technologies considered more modern and up-to-date, SMS is more adapted to agricultural context characterised by a large part of small farmers (almost 75% less than 10 hectares). It can reach to a large audience at a relatively lower cost, it is accessible on all types of mobile phones and the message can be read by the recipient at any time compared to other features like mobile apps and voice calls [ 29 ].…”

Adoption of processing technologies and innovative food preservation techniques: findings from smallholders in the Lindi Region in Tanzania

“…Further, farmers' livelihoods and income levels can be significantly impacted through the uptake of post-harvest value addition technologies (Agor et al, 2020). However, despite these potentials, the actual adoption of innovative practices by smallholders is relatively slow (Meijer et al, 2015;Dhehibi et al, 2019). Understanding farmers' decision-making processes alongside the determinants and barriers of agricultural innovation adoption can pave the way to more successful implementation (Dhehibi et al, 2019;Arslan, 2020).…”