Climate adaptive capacity-building initiatives and activities in developing countries, particularly those implemented by developmental agencies and international organizations, commonly focus on the upstream direct adaptive capacity-building needs of targeted vulnerable sectors. However, overlooking a holistic climate-adaptive capacity-building of a vulnerable sector down to the last link of its value chain renders inadequate contribution, jeopardizes the adaptation intervention, and prevents achieving a high level of buy-in of the chain actors for the results of the sought capacity-building programs. Thus, this study developed a hybrid system-wide and participatory (focus groups-based) multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) to conduct adaptive-capacity needs assessments for the actors of the agribusiness value chain of the developing country of Jordan. Our holistic approach enabled highlighting the sector's climate vulnerability along the value chain, conducting self-regulated adaptive training needs assessment (TNA) of the sector's actors and identifying and prioritizing their real adaptive capacity-building needs. This approach proved to be uniquely advantageous in comparison to the sector's commonly used questionnaire-based surveys that are limited-participatory, researcher-regulated, and subsystem-oriented approaches. The advantages of this hybrid hands-on and wide-ranging MCDA–TNA approach are evident from its revelation of unique results. The approach enabled actors of such a highly vulnerable sector to spontaneously identify and prioritize the indirect downstream climate adaptive capacity-building needs surprisingly over the direct needs. This is because the actors considered the indirect needs more important to their businesses and livelihoods than the direct needs, thus considering the indirect needs as “post-requisites” of the fate of the direct upstream needs. The hybrid approach also enabled the beneficiaries to formulate the intervention outcomes, unveil the factors ignored by the conventional researcher-controlled approaches, secure high buy-in of the self-attained results, and prioritize the actual adaptive capacity-building demands. This robust combination of qualitative research methods and tools could be straightforwardly applied to design and conduct efficient and cost-effective adaptive capacity-building programs, especially during time-restricted and resource-limited interventions. The results of such types of quick and cost-effective qualitative investigations of adaptive capacity-building needs could be considered a preliminary and a first step toward deeper and more extensive quantitative studies, if needed.

The study explored socio economic conditions of wheat farmers to evaluate the impacts of the introduction of the full package(FP) which contains zero tillage, new varieties of wheat seed, adding fertilizer, using the combine, and using herbicides. Partial budget was used to work out the cost and returns of adopting the full package. The principal method was the administration of a household questionnaire. The household questionnaire was designed to elicit basic numerical data on household structure, farm inputs and expenditures, crop production, wheat variety, farming method, and the strengths and opportunities of the new adopted technologies. Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats (SWOT) analysis was also used to provide a framework for potential solutions (opportunities) and threats, and analysis of the FP. Garrett ranking was applied to rank a set of factors in adopting the FP as perceived by the sample respondents based on certain criteria. A socio-economic questionnaire was designed to elicit basic numerical data. About 50 farmers were personally interviewed in Irbid governorate. Farmers were characterized by large number of family members and good education. The percentage of the male to female was nearly the same. Results showed that 48% of farmers have finished high school, and 34% have higher education.

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This paper examined the strengths, weaknesses, opportuniti es, and threats to new technologies adoption and application in representative sub -humid agricultural communities of Irbid, Madaba, and Karak of Jordan. This is predicated on the need for improved performance and reinvigoration of research tools for better policymaking. Some of the strengths are saving time, increase production, and profitability for new technologies. The study explored socio-economic conditions of pulses farmers to evaluate the impacts of the introduction of new technologies of seeder use, zero-tillage, new pulses varieti es, adding fertilizers with scheduling, using herbicides, using recommended seeding rates, and recommended planting dates. On the other hand, opportunities that can be explored is expected increased incomes. No problems or threats expected to the adoption and application of new technologies. The paper recommends that research and policymakers should pay proper attention to the strengths, weaknesses, opportuniti es, and threats to adoption and application of new technologies with a view of making decisions truly more responsi ve to local concerns and policy.