The primary focus of agricultural research and extension in eastern Africa is technology generation and dissemination. Despite prior critiques of the shortcomings of this approach, the consequences of such activities continue to be measured through the number of technologies developed and introduced into the supply chain. At best, impact is assessed by the total numbers of adopters and by the household and system factors influencing adoption. While the diffusion research tradition has made substantive advances in recent decades, attention to what (...) happens to technologies after adaptive, on-farm research trials continues to be limited in practice. While a host of newer approaches designed to correct for past shortcomings in diffusion research is now available, integrative methodologies that capitalize on the strengths of these different traditions are sorely needed. This article presents a more encompassing methodology for tracking the fate of technological interventions, illustrating the potential applications of findings for enhancing the positive impact of agricultural research and extension in the region. (shrink)

Attempts to understand farmer conservation behavior based on quantitative socio-demographic, attitude, and awareness variables have been largely inconclusive. In order to understand fully how farmers are making conservation decisions, 32 in-depth interviews were conducted in the Eagle Creek watershed in central Indiana. Coding for environmental attitudes and practice adoption revealed several dominant themes, representing multi-dimensional aspects of environmental attitudes. Farmers who were motivated by off-farm environmental benefits and those who identified responsibilities to others (stewardship) were most likely to adopt conservation (...) practices. Those farmers who focused on the farm as business and were most concerned about profitability were less likely to adopt practices. The notion of environmental stewardship in particular was found to be much more complex than the way it is traditionally measured in quantitative studies. The interplay between on-farm and off-farm benefits to practice adoption is an issue that quantitative studies largely do not address. This study seeks to increase understanding of farmers’ environmental attitudes and the connections to conservation behavior. (shrink)

Adoption of technology in agriculture can significantly reorganize production and relationships amongst humans, animals, technology, and the natural environment. However, the adoption of agricultural technology is not homogenous, and diversity in integration leads to a diversity of outcomes and impacts. In this study, we examine the adoption of automated milking systems in small and midsize dairy farms in the US Midwest, the Netherlands, and Denmark. In contrast to technological determinism, we find significant variation amongst adopters in the implementation of AMS (...) and corresponding variation in outcomes. Adopters have significant discretion in determining the use of AMS, which leads to a diversity of possible outcomes for family and non-family labor, human–cow relationships, animal welfare, the environment, and financial resiliency. Adoption and implementation are shaped by both structural factors, such as debt load and labor market variation, and by farmers’ individual personality traits and values, such as a willingness to release control to technology. Rather than uniform adoption and impacts of technology, we highlight the importance of context, the co-constitution of technology and users, and the diversity of technology adoption and its associated impacts. (shrink)

Diverse agricultural technologies are promoted to increase yields and incomes, save time, improve food and nutritional security, and even empower women. Yet a gender gap in technology adoption remains for many agricultural technologies, even for those that are promoted for women. This paper complements the literature on gender and technology adoption, which largely focuses on reasons for low rates of female technology adoption, by shifting attention to what happens within a household after it adopts a technology. Understanding the expected benefits (...) and costs of adoption, from the perspective of women users in households with adult males, can help explain observed technology adoption rates and why technology adoption is often not sustained in the longer term. Drawing on qualitative data from Ethiopia, Ghana, and Tanzania, this paper develops a framework for examining the intrahousehold distribution of benefits from technology adoption, focusing on small-scale irrigation technologies. The framework contributes to the conceptual and empirical exploration of joint control over technology by men and women in the same household. Efforts to promote technology adoption for agricultural development and women’s empowerment would benefit from an understanding of intrahousehold control over technology to avoid interpreting technology adoption as an end in and of itself. (shrink)