Understanding the Process of Agricultural Technology Adoption: Mineral Fertilizer in Eastern DR Congo

Abstract

While there is a large literature on agricultural technology adoption, evidence from the poorest countries is still lacking and the decision-making process of farmers is still poorly understood. We empirically analyze mineral fertilizer adoption among poor and food insecure smallholder farmers in South-Kivu, eastern DR Congo, after its introduction by a research and extension program. We disentangle the adoption process in an awareness step, a tryout decision, and a continued adoption decision. We show that variables commonly used to explain agricultural technology adoption, and the different program interventions, have a different impact on the different steps in the adoption process.

Drivers for the Adoption of Different Eco-Innovation Types in the Fertilizer Sector: A Review

“…Here in particular the stabilization of the nutrients in the soil, closing the nutrient cycles, or a more efficient use of the fertilizer nutrients are discussed (e.g., [9,88]). Other publications have the use of mineral fertilizer in developing countries in focus (e.g., [89,90]). Furthermore, tools for diagnosis to enable a better estimation of the crop nutrient status are evaluated by a number of publications (e.g., [91,92]).…”

“…That goes in line with the quality of support. Here a good support or consulting could stimulate the farmers to try a new product [9,88,89,133]. New products are in need for a purchase opportunity by farmers.…”

“…Hence the access to a market selling the new products is necessary. If the farm surrounding does not provide any opportunity to buy an innovative product, the farmers are less aware and have no opportunity to come in contact with these new products [89,[134][135][136]. If a new product implies further investments, the access to credit can motivate innovation adoption [89,134,137,138].…”

“…If the farm surrounding does not provide any opportunity to buy an innovative product, the farmers are less aware and have no opportunity to come in contact with these new products [89,[134][135][136]. If a new product implies further investments, the access to credit can motivate innovation adoption [89,134,137,138]. Age and education level can also stimulate the adoption by having a longer planning horizon and a better formal training [89,134,[136][137][138] (Table 8).…”

Profit efficiency analysis among groundnut farmers from Malawi

“…Moreover, studies found that land expansion seems impossible since the population keeps on increasing and subsequently, the per-capita land is already at its minimal making it impossible to expand the area under cultivation (Asfaw et al, 2012;de Janvry et al, 2003;Islam, 1995). The second option of increasing productivity through technology innovation and application also requires complementation since it faces several constraints like, technology adoption is time consuming, requires high level of technical knowledge to implement, can be risky, costly and inaccessible, which hinders technology adoption (Abateet al, 2016;Brick and Visser, 2015;Lambrecht et al, 2014;Parks et al, 2015). Therefore, the promising solution to increase food production mainly lies in increasing land productivity by improving resource use efficiency (Islam, 1995;Rahman, 2003).…”