An awareness-adoption matrix for strategic decision making in agricultural development projects: a case study in Yunnan Province, China

Abstract

Significant achievements have been made in generating sustainable agricultural technologies in developing countries. Usually, these new technologies have been more effective in increasing production and productivity than existing technologies. However, many new technologies considered ‘effective’ have not been successful in alleviating the associated sustainability problems, due to poor adoption by targeted users. Success of any novel technical intervention should be judged on the basis of how widespread adoption is in the target area by targeted users. In this context, a case study identified the factors affecting farmers’ adoption of improved technologies extended by an agricultural development project in a rural Village in Yunnan Province, China. Initial adoption/adaptation of project technologies was influenced by farmers’ awareness of the technology. Farmers were more aware of polythene mulch, contour cultivation, intercropping and tree planting technologies than others. This led to a comparatively high initial uptake of polythene mulch, contour cultivation, sweet chestnut, and intercropping technologies. Farmers had inadequate knowledge about some Project technologies, the adoption of which was particularly low. This reveals the need for increasing farmers’ awareness about the rationale for Project technologies to achieve greater adoption/adaptation of project technologies by farmers over wider areas. Farmers’ testing of the technology leads to better adoption/adaptation compared to mere awareness. However, considerable time and resources are required for testing/trying technologies. This justifies the usefulness of comparatively quick and less resource demanding options for awareness creation. Development of effective cropping technologies is important for sustainable agricultural development. The success of any agricultural development project, especially in terms of improving sustainability, depends on how widely those improved technologies are adopted/adapted by farmers in the targeted region. Therefore, farmers’ adoption of technologies should be a key criterion for judging the success of any project. The awareness-adoption matrix is a useful tool to guide research and development projects to achieve expected adoption/adaptation of technologies. Use of the matrix helps identification of weak and strong aspects of research and development projects and thus assists strategic decision-making.