Sustainable intensification amongst Ghana's pineapple farmers: the complexity of an innovation determines the effectiveness of its training

Abstract

To foster the adoption of sustainable intensification practices amongst Ghana's farmers, they are widely promoted through training sessions provided by development organizations, companies, and the public extension service. We investigate whether these training sessions are effective and find that they are effective only for the diffusion of organic fertilizers but not for mulching. We suggest that this comes from the complexity of the innovations. Mulching is one of the simplest sustainable intensification technologies. It diffuses easily through peer learning and, after an initial training delivered to a critical mass of farmers, does not require training anymore. The use of organic fertilizers, in contrast, requires more specific knowledge and adaptation, which limits the effectiveness of peer learning and increases the effectiveness of training. This suggests that to achieve a widespread diffusion of sustainable intensification amongst Ghana's farmers, training sessions should focus on those practices that are complex and thus difficult to learn from peers.

WITHDRAWN: Extension typologies and sustainable intensification: Evidence from West Africa

“…The results show that agricultural training significantly increases the adoption of improved seeds and crop rotation and intercropping (Figure 4 panel A). These findings are important as they contribute to a growing body of literature that shows the influence of farm training in promoting the adoption of sustainable farm management practices (Nakano et al 2018;Wuepper et al 2018;Takahashi et al 2020).…”

“…In some cases, these trainings take the form of demonstrations, farmer field schools, and farmer business schools. Earlier analysis from Ghana suggest that trainings may be even more relevant for technologies that are complex like organic fertilizers (Wuepper et al 2018). We thus estimate whether trainings matter and could explain the relationship between extension advise and farm intensification strategies.…”

“…In addition, we contribute fresh perspectives to the body of research that has demonstrated that training is an important factor in the adoption of technology. (Kondylis et al 2017;Wuepper et al 2018).…”

Social Capital, Income Diversification and Climate Change Adaptation: Panel Data Evidence from Rural Ethiopia

“…This is consistent with the recent empirical evidence, for example Suri () from Kenya. Other research, however, also provided evidence that is inconsistent with the ‘poor but efficient’ hypothesis (Mullainathan, ; Duflo et al ., ; Wuepper et al ., ,b). In addition to individual biases, social and cultural variables have also been found to explain empirical deviations from profit maximisation (Adger et al ., ; Di Falco and Bulte, ; Paul et al ., ).…”

“…Despite this, the adoption of risk mitigation instruments remains incomplete. Explanations for this include: lower initial income (Reardon et al ., ; Abdulai and CroleRees, ; Shively, ), human and other capital constraints (Abdulai and CroleRees, ; Benin et al ., ), information asymmetries (Wuepper et al ., ,b), imperfect factor and product markets (Gebremedhin and Swinton, ; Pender and Fafchamps, ), and limited off‐ and non‐farm opportunities (Abdulai and CroleRees, ; Lanjouw and Lanjouw, ; Bezu and Holden, ). Whether farmers are willing and able to adopt risk‐mitigating technologies depends on standard economic arguments, such as financial means and information, but also on psychological and cultural factors, such as perceived self‐efficacy and social capital (Di Falco and Bulte, ; Di Falco, ; Gebrehiwot and van der Veen, ; Wuepper et al ., ,b).…”