Climate change and food security are critical topics in sustainable agricultural development. The climate-smart agriculture initiative proposed by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations has attracted international attention. Smart agriculture (SA) has since been recognized as an influential trend contributing to agricultural development. Therefore, encouraging farmers to adopt digital technologies and mobile devices in farming practices has become a policy priority worldwide. However, the literature on the psychological factors driving farmers’ intentions to adopt SA technologies remains limited. This study investigated how farmers’ knowledge and attitudes regarding SA affect their adoption of smart technologies in Taiwan. A total of 321 farmers participated in a survey in 2017 and 2018, and the data were used to construct an ordinary least squares regression model of SA adoption. This study provides a preliminary understanding of the relationship between psychological factors and innovation adoption of SA technologies in a small-scale farming economic context. The findings suggest that policymakers and research and development institutes should concentrate on improving market access to established and critical SA technologies.

Climate change and food security are the most relevant issues to be considered in sustainable agricultural development. The FAO’s initiative of climate-smart agriculture has attracted international attention. Since then, the smart agriculture (SA) has been recognized as the most influential trends in contributing to agricultural development. Therefore, encouraging farmers to adopt digital technologies and mobile devices into farming practices becomes a policy priority worldwide. However, there is limited literature available on psychologic factors that drive farmers’ intentions to adopt SA technologies. The purpose of this study is to investigate how farmer’s knowledge and attitude toward SA affects their adoption of smart technologies in Taiwan. A total of 321 farmers participated in the project’s survey in 2017 and 2018, from which the data was used to perform an OLS regression model of SA adoption. This study contributes to a preliminary understanding of relationship between innovation and adoption of SA technologies in a small-scale farming economic context. The findings suggest that the policy makers and R&D institutes need to concentrate on improving market access for well-known and high important SA technologies.