Psychological Determinants of Farmers’ Intention to Adopt Improved Agricultural Innovations: A Study among Smallholder Farmers in the Gushegu District of Northern Ghana.

Abstract

The extent and speed to which farmers adopt available innovations/technologies can significantly improve crop production and promote food security locally, nationally and globally. However, there is evidence that farmers do not easily adopt farming innovations. In an attempt to understand and predict farmers’ innovation adoption behaviour, recent studies have focused on farmers’ background and economic factors with little attention to psychological factors, particularly within the African context. Using an exploratory sequential mixed methods design, this study contributes to this knowledge gap by examining the psychological factors that influence intention to adopt improved agricultural innovations especially row planting, improved seeds and fertilizer. Two Hundred and Eighty-Two (282) smallholder farmers from the Gushegu district participated in Study 1 and 2. Thematic analysis of data in Study 1 revealed that social motives motivate smallholder farmers in Northern Ghana than economic motives. Study one (1) also identified twenty salient beliefs that smallholder farmers have about improved agricultural innovations. These beliefs include increasing farm yield and producing attractive farm products. Study 2 used the beliefs identified in Study 1 to construct three new measures and used them in addition to other existing measures to determine the factors that influence adoption intention. The results of Study 2 showed that adoption referents, perception about social pressure (subjective norm) and evaluation of improved agricultural innovations (attitude) strongly influence farmers’ adoption intention. The results also showed that attitude mediated the effect of behavioural beliefs on adoption intention whereas subjective norm mediated the influence of normative beliefs on adoption intention. Similarly, control beliefs indirectly affect adoption intention through perceived behavioural control. Besides, the study found that gender, household size, risk attitude, psychological wellbeing and farm size have a significant effect on the salient beliefs about improved agricultural innovations, which in turn influence adoption intention. These findings show that adopting a psychological approach to agricultural innovation adoption programs would ensure farmer effectiveness, satisfaction, quality of work life and farmer commitment. Keywords: Improved Agricultural Technologies, Smallholder Farmers, Innovation Adoption, Adoption Intention, Adoption Behavior, Gushegu District, Northern Ghana, Africa