Improving Gender Participation in Agricultural Technology Adoption in Asia: From Rhetoric to Practical Action

Research on the adoption of new practices and new behaviors in agriculture continues to grow and evolve, and its relevance to policy remains high. This special issue presents 10 papers that provide overviews of important aspects of the recent adoption literature, or identify gaps and opportunities in the literature. Adoption research has been innovative in a number of ways, including its recognition of adoption decision making as a process, not an event; its emphases on heterogeneity and learning; and its strong multidisciplinary flavor. There is scope for further innovation through efforts to enhance predictions of adoption, better understanding the balance between profit and non‐profit motivations, and better recognizing the influence on adoption of characteristics of the innovations, not just characteristics of the potential adopters and their contexts. Opportunities for policy include effort to support women farmers' adoption of beneficial innovations in developing countries, and use of tools and approaches from marketing in public extension programs

Section: Methodological Issuesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Implications For Policymentioning

confidence: 99%

Understanding Adoption of Innovations and Behavior Change to Improve Agricultural Policy

Pannell¹,

Zilberman²

2020

“…Research has shown that gender bias can constrain agricultural productivity (Jafry and Sulaiman ; Quisumbing et al ), a fact that extension services seemed largely unaware of four decades ago. Today, extension services in many countries function with greater gender balance in reaching out to male and female decision makers, although additional progress is needed (Quisumbing et al ; Rola‐Rubzen et al ).…”

Section: Extension Changesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Changes in Agricultural Extension and Implications for Farmer Adoption of New Practices

Norton¹,

Alwang²

2020

180

Agricultural extension programs have changed significantly over the past four decades. What has changed and why? Have these changes affected adoption of innovations by farmers? What if anything should policy makers and extension agencies do differently, particularly in developing countries? Structural changes in agriculture, new types of agricultural technologies, tight public budgets, efforts to decentralize government, and emerging information and communication technologies (ICT) have led to pluralistic and, in some cases, lower‐cost extension and advisory services that combine public and private mechanisms for financing and implementing extension activities. Farmer groups and virtual networks play a growing role in technology diffusion, and extension services can exploit these networks using the latest ICT approaches.

“…Mwangi and Kariuki 2015) so are not proposed as additional factors here. However, it is recognized that gender can be an important factor influencing adoption in some cases (Rola-Rubzen et al 2020). In these cases, policy makers may consider evaluating adoption for gender-based subpopulations, as gender can influence a range of factors with consistent influence on adoption, such as information access (Mwangi and Kariuki 2015;Brown, Llewellyn, and Nuberg 2018a).…”

Section: Additional Considerations For Predicting Adoption In Smallhomentioning

confidence: 99%

Predicting Adoption of Innovations by Farmers: What is Different in Smallholder Agriculture?

Llewellyn¹,

Brown²

2020

Predictions of the speed and extent of adoption of new agricultural practices and technologies are needed to inform decisions and plans in agricultural policy, research and extension. Using an existing tool for predicting the adoption of agricultural innovations in developed countries as the starting point, we identify a number of distinctive features of smallholder agriculture in developing countries that affect agricultural adoption. Additional factors that need to be considered when making predictions of adoption by smallholder populations include: They may be relatively more heterogeneous in their constraints, capabilities, resources, attitudes and priorities; they may be more influenced by particular cultural norms; they may prioritize subsistence over profits; they may be less reliant on agriculture as their primary source of income; they may have relatively high future discount rates; nonlandowner farmers may be less able to capture the benefits resulting from an innovation; and there may be lower and slower diffusion of information across the farming population, with more variable extension quantity and quality.