Impacts of Socio-Psychological Factors on Actual Adoption of Sustainable Land Management Practices in Dryland and Water Stressed Areas

Abstract

Despite the presence of several studies on technology adoption, there are limited empirical studies on how socio-psychological factors affect the adoption of sustainable agriculture. Therefore, this paper investigates how socio-psychological factors-such as social capital, information, attitudes, efficacy, and aversion-affect smallholder farmers’ decisions to adopt sustainable land management practices, such as agroforestry systems, organic compost, and crop rotation with legumes. Cross-sectional data are collected from 350 randomly selected farm households using a pre-tested and structured questionnaire. A multivariate probit model is used to investigate factors that influence the probability of adopting these practices. The ordered probit model is also applied to identify and analyze the determinants of the number (intensity) of land management practices adopted. The findings indicate that nearly half of the farmers have adopted these land management practices to improve soil fertility, enhance water retention capacity, and increase productivity. It is also found that attitudes, information, education, group membership, relational capital, risk attitudes, and labor supply significantly affect the probability of adopting these agricultural practices. The estimates of the ordered probit model also indicate that extension services, risk attitudes, group membership, relational capital, education and labor supply are major determinants of the number of land management practices used. However, financial resources, biophysical factors and some demographic factors are found to have an insignificant effect on sustainable agriculture adoption. This implies that when it is necessary to promote sustainable land management practices and to stimulate smallholder farmers to adopt such practices in isolation or combination, specific strategies should be designed to improve awareness, build positive attitudes, reduce risk aversion, strengthen formal organizations, and empower endogenous groups (or informal institutions).

Factors Influencing the Technology Adoption Behaviours of Litchi Farmers in China

“…The coefficient for technology attitude was negative and significant at the 10% level, suggesting that the litchi farmers who were more eager to apply new technology were more likely to apply the top grafting technique. This result supports the possibility that the attitude toward technology leads to a practical technique uptake [14,27].…”

“…However, some studies have found that larger farm sizes and a higher percentage of family income coming from the farm have a negative or insignificant effect on technology adoption. This is normally explained by their risk tolerance level [14].…”

“…In terms of technology information accessibility, better access to market and technology information have a positive effect on the technology adoption level [14,15]. Having a relative or friend working Sustainability 2020, 12, 271 4 of 13 in the market may make it easier for farmers to update price information and to sell out products, and it is particularly important for perishable commercial products.…”

Assessing Farmers’ Willingness to Participate in Campaign-Based Watershed Management: Experiences from Boset District, Ethiopia

“…The absence of influence of physical effects on the willingness of farmers could be attributed to the limited direct biophysical benefits of the program to most individual households since the intervention has been mainly confined to selected micro-watersheds on communal lands both in Ararso-Bero and Sara-Areda. This is consistent with other studies in Ethiopia that indicate that farmers are less motivated to participate in an initiative [34] or adopt conservation technologies [35,36] that will not generate short-term benefits at a farm household level. In addition, in some micro-watersheds, SWC structures and planted tree seedlings were being destroyed by flood water coming down from upstream neighboring Kebeles, particularly in Ararso-Bero and Qachachule-Guja.…”

The Determinants of Sustainable Land Management Adoption under Risks in Upland Area of Vietnam

“…Some studies on the economics of sustainable land management have suggested incentives for farmers to adopt sustainable land management practices based on the analysis of their household characteristics as well as the features and attributes of their farm operations (Semgalawe, 1998;Namboth, 2015;Menozzi et al, 2015;Saguye, 2017a;Zeweld et al, 2018;Meijer et al, 2014;Vo et al, 2018;Wang et al, 2018). According to Tenge et al (2004) and Bravo-Ureta et al (2006), the analyses to determine the factors affecting land degradation often focus exclusively on characteristics at household level, including the socio-economic characteristics of the farmers (age, gender, level of education, etc.…”