I think the main reason is that these farmers may not agree with a change in the method they know and practicing all the time which they see it working, so why they pay money in something they don't know. Others they deny paying for something that they think they should have for free. I think the only way to convince them is to apply the technology practically in front of them and let them see by their eyes how much more benefits and profit they can get in such application.

Yes @Nur, I agree with you on principles. But in India small farmers adopt it, it works also till the technology is supplemented with funds. The date funds are withdrawn, farmers also stop its usage....

It sounds as if the farmers are only making changes because someone is paying them to, not because they see some great benefit in making that change. Even in Western society farmers don't make changes easily. Technology adoption can be slow. This in part can be due to establishment costs, the way that the changes fit with the broader farming system, belief systems, other pressures from people associated with the farm business, habit, family and community expectations, etc. I don't know what farmers are like in India, but in Australia they are fairly independent small business people that like to believe that they run their farms with a degree of autonomy. They don't necessarily appreciate someone with a "shiny backside" (ie sits in an office chair all day - their perception) coming onto "their" farm and "telling them" how to run it.

With funding supplied you may be able to get the farmers to change habits for long enough for those changes to become permanent. It would be wonderful if this could happen, especially if the changes resulted in greater security and prosperity for the farmer, their family and their community.

The best people to ask about the lack of adoption would be the farmers themselves. There could be some barrier to adoption that you have not considered.

it is lack of coordination in the triangle of researcher, farmer and extension and educationists. All stakeholder of this linage must be properly linked for impacting research.

I agree with Johanne and Deepa that farmers are very comfortable with their cultural practices and are very reluctant to change them especially if they are not convinced that what they are being encouraged to adopt is much better than what they are used to. It could also be that the processes required to adopt the technology is more cumbersome than what they currently use. Farmers are very intelligent people who have a good understanding of what works or does not. Researchers would have to go the extra mile to find out why farmers are not adopting technologies and try to adapt these technologies to the needs of farmers. Another problem to my mind is the gap between extension and research. The extension agents are the link between researchers and farmers and if this link is properly strengthened, more technologies would go to farmers and farmer inputs to technology creation would be higher than it is now and if farmer needs and inputs are considered in technology generation from the beginning, these technologies would be tailor made for the farmers to answer their areas of greatest need and therefore give better advantage than their cultural practices and hence be more readily adopted.

I would agree with Nur and Kashif. In a way, farmers have survived with their own ways of doing things and that is how it is for them. Not many farmers then give a thought about the improvement in their life. Rather, a bird in hen is worth two in bush for our farmers.

Another reason, I think, is the hastle that accompany the new technology with all accompanying costs. That starts with the learning of how it works, and the maintenance, and, if you need somebody to work it for you, then you have to be following him with all circumstance. Technology is not an easy job for somebody living comfortably with how he is used to.

Ensure the market is fully understood by the farmer and that financial beneficial benefits will be tangible and if possible real and immediate. That is where we lose it. Do a thorough value chain analysis and ensure the technologiesselected for the intervensions is socially accepted and within technical capacity. Look at illiteracy levels and match it with the level of technology selected to address the gaps in the value chain

Amos

I would suggest that there are some societal constraints associated with innovation in agriculture. Farming is as much a lifestyle as it is a business, and often steeped in tradition. The benefits of innovative products and technologies need to be properly relayed to producers and there is often a communication gap between scientists and producers. If scientists want buy-in from producers, they must ensure that new technologies are practical. There is some disconnect between what works well in a lab or research plot, and what works in a commercial application where a larger bottom line must be respected.

I agee fully with Adongo and Corlena.... Nice points raised.

This question is too general to come up with a specific answer. Let me attempt to give it some perspective based on my experience. Some of these might have been touched above.

1) Knowledge gap. My dad was a subsistence farmer in rural Ethiopia. He had deeply inculcated traditional beliefs that I just could not bridge. Therefore, I could not convince him the need to carry less stock to match to the pasture productivity.

2) Value-based farming. An organic farmer is an organic farmer based on ideology. Mind you, there are opportunistic organic farmers who are there to make use of the great margins. But most belief deeply in the "planet-saving" aspects of organic farming and are lost to innovation.

3) Tradition and inertia. I lumped these two together because they are fairly related. Changing the farming practice involves learning new skills, acquiring new equipment, loss of use of expensive equipment and a significant risk to the business.

4) The innovation is not addressing shared problem. Some innovations are innovations looking for application. The farmer does not share the vision. One example of how to generate shared vision innovation is to use the Australian example of Producer Initiated Research and Development. The limitation of such approach is they tend to be applied and local issue focused. Still, using the producers as a sounding board for the blue sky research from the start may minimize the effort need later.

Unfortunately, farmers are often set in their ways and trust only themselves with their output. To incorporate scientific conclusions into their production it requires time, study, often money, risk, trust in the scientist, and the ability to cope with change. Not to mention the fact that farmers scoff at genetically altered produce. Believe it or not their intention is not to produce the most genetically sound product - this is the dream of the scientist. The farmer, unless paid or forced by an employer, instinctively wants to continue the quality process of work that has been in the family for decades.

To answer your question, it would take a politician-style personal interview with a farmer to convince him/her that change would increase output, quality, and reduce cost; otherwise, change is not likely without a history of poor output by the farm.

Education status of farmer is a very important trait which can affect the adoption of scientific technologies. There are many technologies which have long term impact, immediate gain may not be visible. So, especially these types of technologies are adopted by farmers having good education status. This is more important for developing and under-developed countries. The technology will say to be TRUSTWORTHY if it has less incubation period for results..... and yes also, in poor countries, GOVERNMENT POLICIES have significant impact on adoption/non-adoption of technologies....

If we speak in Indian context which holds good for most of the developing world, there are many a reasons for non-adoption of a technology. The foremost is the cost of technology and farmer's ability to pay for that. My personal experiences as a researcher has been that though the farmers are aware about the technology, they lack the capacity to buy and hence the adoption is limited to selected few who can afford it. The other reason is that though the technology is cheaper in comparison, but its availability is often not there, so despite a desire to adopt the farmers are unable to do so. And the third reason may be related to the awareness, i.e. they may not be knowing about it, its use, potential benefits and so on.

The extension systems have to see that they do not lack in creating awareness, and the Govt and other agencies responsible for management of inputs and technology have to see that a particular technology is available and within the reach of common farmers so that its adoption can take place.

Hi, we are made some works about this issue and the principals factors were, age of the farmer, education, the fear of change and the idea of ​​making more changes represents more work

I've been thinking about this for a long while. Let me start with an anecdote about a real farmer, my father. He was an excellent and successful farmer in Western Australia, with an average-sized property that had only been the family for one generation. It is important to understand this background. Inside his man, there were two farmers: a) The Grain Grower who allowed scientists to use his farm for trials and then rapidily adopted the latest proven technology; b) The Sheep Breeder who insisted that this was his favourite 'industry' but lived 100 years in the past. He loved his animals, he loved to go to the shows, he avidly adhered to age-old breeding practices, he bought and sold cute rams to people like himself. I'm a livestock scientist, so you can imagine my frustration. For the sake of family harmony, I did not argue with him and simply accepted that the sheep were a hobby, not real business, and not about food production. How could this single brain harbour two such different people? Well, obviously, it is easier to become attached to animals than it is to wheat plants. I think this explains a lot about why extensive animal industries, in particular, are very slow to adopt technology and improve. The recent adaptation of "Fourth Generation Extension" to livestock industries has re-inforced my feelings about this with hard evidence. People like Jo Sneddon, if they are allowed, will ignite a slow revolution.

The process of technology adoption is complex because they are not only involved technical and production factors but also an intricate web of social relations where the agents involved confronting different logics , develop very different activities and struggle to achieve a better position in the field where they develop their socio- economic activity. Therefore, the adoption of new technologies can not be studied without contextualize integrators in more socioeconomic and historical processes. In other words, to understand how technology adoption processes occur in a particular rural community, you need to have a comprehensive theory to explain the structure and functioning of that community. If no explanatory framework of this global behavior of a number of factors such as types of access to natural resources , family structure, migration patterns , major strategies of social reproduction, political composition of the community organization would be unknown producers , etc. . , which are of central importance for understanding the processes of technology adoption .

In the process of adoption of technologies by farmers , an important aspect is the method of knowledge management . Processes involving participatory action research have shown to be more successful than those linear models : researcher -producer . Similarly, the development of field schools where farmers learn by doing, tend to be more successful in the process of technology adoption.

Exactly, Gonzalo. However, I would go further that participatory research and "farmer schools". Please excuse my generalizations. The participant farmers are often at the extreme end of the the population distribution curve ... they are usually better educated and informed and they love working with scientists (and so we scientists love working with them!). The middle 80% of farmers are far more conservative, regard them with suspicion (sometimes justified) and will wait for many years before following their examples. As scientists, we think we have made our contribution to adoption but, in fact, we often achieve little and nothing quickly.

Farmer schools are better. In our situation, we find that "field days" or public lectures are often well received by the farmers ... they have a good day listening and talking ... but our data shows that only about 1% will change their practice. However, a farmer school where you have dedicated groups (we find that making them pay to attend increases the level of dedication!), with professional 'adult educators', work better, especially if the participants use their own farm as a model during the training.

However, in my view, the really big issue is understanding 'the market'. We need to understand what the farmers want (and it would be best to find that out before we do the research). How do we find out? We ask them! You need a professional-level survey so you hard data as a foundation for building an adoption process.

An example: in Australia, we have been battling for 40 years to convince sheep farmers to do something about neonatal mortality. Traditional extension practices failed completely. Why? Well, we now know that we do not understand our sheep farmers and their motivations ... in fact, there are at least two distinct populations of sheep farmers with different motivations. See Elliott et al (2011) Livestock Science 140, 103 (10.1016/j.livsci.2011.02.015)

Completely agree with your approach Graeme, market linkage is key in this process for producers. Field schools and participatory approaches should also consider the context of agrifood chains; where networking is vital to this process. In recent years, in Central America, we have been developing actions with value chains for maize and beans in the scheme of innovation networks with strong leverage technology and business management knowledge.

I see that you and I have France in common! My first postdoc was there in the 1980s. I wonder if you know about AgrucultureIsLife:

https://www.linkedin.com/groups/AgricultureIsLife-4536271?home=&gid=4536271&trk=my_groups-tile-grp

You need to be in LinkedIn. You might find this an interesting discussion group. It is run out of the University of Liege (Belgium). I think Sarah Garré is a hero. She is a young person generating real interest in agriculture in young people.

Cooperative Extension Services in the United States, celebrating it's 100 year anniversary historically engaged farmers through the land grant universities and county based services to successfully help farmers adopt new technology. The more novel the technology the more unfamiliar the farmer relative to their regular business, the more costly technology adoption becomes. Farmers are business people not scholars, researchers etc. As the US farming model has changed over the last 100 years and as the farmer and technology businesses have become more competitive and more proprietary, as technology emanates for agriculture from industry, the more this role of technical support (technology adoption) has shifted to the technology provider. Extension then fills a role of independant validation of technology benefits that doesn't rely necessarily on business relationships. Improvest for example, a vaccine to ablate reproductive function registered in the US for boars has struggled to be adopted. Market barriers exist due to unfamiliarity with the technology such that the company has announced it has funded a demonstration farm. This would be considered a ground breaking attempt in the animal health field in the US to enhance technology adoption. My experience in industry and in Extension aiding and enhancing technology adoption has found that new techologies are only typically adopted when profit margins are high and business is good, only a recent revelation in the US and that farmers are inherent more conservative than the average person (perhaps an understatement) because Mother Nature and business have taught them well!

If i will talk about reason for failure of technology transfer to farmer is multifaceted. There is big gap in linkage between researcher and extension personnel. Our extension personnel is asked to transfer all type of technology. They are not very much conversant with each the technology and when they talk to farmers; they don't have the confidence of convincing the farmers or able to talk to them in details about the technology. In particularly in animal management; disease prevention; feeding of different animals and reproductive management. In my opinion we should develop subject wise extension specialist; i.e with practical experienced people will help in transferring lot of technology by transferring skill to farmers. Once you develop farmers with skill and interest for learning skill, transfer of technology is sustainable. So I want to say our extension person should be subject matter specialist with good practical experience. We never give any credit to good extension personnel. In my suggestion after a certain period of research by subject matter specialist; we can motivate few researcher as extension worker with good motivation package for transferring the technology in the field condition. It may take some time, however these researcher converted to extension manager will able to teach/train/develop skill to the large number of field level extension personnel to see the level of adaptation and local modification of technology in a short span of time and can interact with researcher without much ego problem between researcher and extension personnel.

Because user friendly techniques are being required by farmers and it takes years to make them believe on newer technologies, mass media campaigns need to be adapted with massive filed orientations

The reason for the farmers are reluctant to adopt farm technology is that farmers are accustomed to the farming situation that they get input from their area for centuries. However, many technologies demand inputs from the outside of their environment which cannot be supplied on sustainable manner. Additionally, farmers  highly suspects the sustainability of the new technology as they observe the failure of some technologies. Generally, the problem is multifaceted and needs comprehensive study.

its simply a question of affordability. Presently, many farmers are aware of the value of modern technology like modern seeds and fertilizer, but they cannot afford it this not because they do not have resources, but they have so many urgent livelihood needs like school fees, food, medicine that eat into thier resources. i also found that many farmers like living at the same level with other farmers, they are afraid of getting richer or getting a better harvest than thier neighbors. explanations given for this kind of behavior vary from being bewitched to fear of inviting the rest of the village to depend on you or attracting jealousy from neighbors. You may find this stupid but that is what happens in my village in bungoma kenya

Hello there,

Lack of technological knowledge is a clearly visible factor for the innovation resistance.

Perceived risk associated with the innovation is one of the major factors influencing the resistance.

Hope this is of help.

Azhar

Mostly of the time farmers suspect about the sustainability of the technology.

the appropriateness of technology depends on the needs an abilities of the farmers. Many technologies are not adopted because of lack of abilities to adopt and sustain or lack of motivations or both.

Farmers need hand holding throughout the process for effective utilization of new technology.

I think that majority of the scientist finding are not reaching the farmers as needed and as researched. I can say this from the tangible condition in our setting. not even research finding, our farmers are not getting fertilizers and seeds on time even with their money. In addition, even if some of the scientific finding reaches them, they need day to day follow up and support till they found the fruit of their fade up. I think what we lacks is this!!!

This attached document has focused on some issues relevant to livestock sector. I am sure almost similar situation exists in agriculture sector too.

Dissemination of improved livestock technologies is important to enhance livestock productivity. But investigating the relevance of these technologies and the process of technology generation is equally or more important argues Prakashkumar Rathod and Mahesh Chander.

Farmers are more intelligent. Scientists should have empathy before suggesting any technology to farmers. Farmers want their problems should be addressed. Most of scientist try to communicate one way before understating the problem in details.

Farmers are not properly exposed to these new system they will with time and resources

As far as a State like Kerala in India is concerned, where farming is not profitable for most of the crops mainly due to very high labour charges, one of the main reasons for non adoption of technology by farmers in the State is this.

But equally important is the non commitment of the Dept officials to try to promote the adoption of suitable technologies by the farmers. You will hardly find any significant program or scheme in the Kerala State Agri Dept. to promote technology adoption. Why - even when research institutions try to do demonstrations of proven technologies in farmers' fields , getting the involvement of the Dept is a cumbersome process. Even if they associate, it is seen to be name sake only with no commitment at all.

Hence, I dont see much future in technology dissemination to farmers in Kerala State of India- unless the Govt brings in drastic improvements in the functioning of the Agri Dept in the State

Dr. K Madhava Chandran, MSc (Ag), Ph.D., Senior Principal Scientist and Head (Retd.), Water Management Agriculture Division, Centre for Water Resources Development and Management ( a research institution of the Govt of Kerala) Kozhikode, Kerala State, INDIA

We always try to find someone to blame ... someone at fault. This is not the problem. The problem is old-world thinking about adoption of technology. Two old-world principles:

1) 'Knowledge deficit' ... this is the idea that people need knowledge so we scientists only need to supply it and everything will get better. Not true.

2) 'Technology diffusion' ... this is the idea that we scientists supply a technology to a group of 'advanced' farmers, and all others will see it and adopt the same technology. Not true because the 'early adopters' (the farmers we scientists love to talk to) are not seen as role models by most of industry.

What is the better way?

Modern theory of extension shows that we must begin by asking the farmers: "what do you need you feel?". They cannot know the technology, but they do know what they feel that they need. It might be as simple as 'more money' but it is often more sophisticated. And, often the male of the family is not the only person to ask.

Then you offer solutions. At this point, they already think the idea is their own. They are now part of the research team.

This is a very good question and needs lot to think and evaluate. I think there is very big gap between technology. The gap between demand and supply. The needs of farmers living in different agro-climatic conditions need different tools. The requirements of farmers working in dry conditions are definitly different from the farmers working in wet conditions. Farmer growing paddy are different from the one growing maize or rearing sheep. Therefor, before developing any technology we should consider the socio ecnomic profile of farmes, their geographical conditions and their requirements. So before developing technology survays for accessing the needs of farms are highly recomended.

Your comment is very wise, Professor Martin. Participatory research processes in which the producer is a cooperating agent are fundamental for developing appropriate agricultural extension strategies. I'm sorry I didn't answer your comment about France, but I see that we have it in common. I am already in the group AgricultureIsLife.

Its a small world!

A colleague of mine, Jo Sneddon does research on adoption. Several years ago, she showed me the attached normal distribution. Farmers at the extreme left love technology so they love talking to scientists. Therefore, we scientists love talking to them! The problem is that there is a 'chasm' between "Innovators/Early adopters" and "Early majority" that slows (or even blocks) the flow of innovations. Therefore, a good adoption plan will target the "Early majority", a major part of the industry and often comprising people who are respected by the "Late majority". Traditional extension programs do not do this.

That is a great question! There are lots of theories around adoption and adoptiveness for farmers, most notably from Everett Rogers' work, but more recently the question is focussed on other aspects such as how farmers make decisions, the political levers and processes that can intervene to encourage adoption, and the role of extension agents.

In New Zealand, we dedicated a 6 year research programme to this topic - you can learn about it more here:

https://www.researchgate.net/project/Primary-Innovation-Co-learning-and-co-innovation-for-science-impact?

Very interesting, Karen. Has review of the project been published?

Dear all,

Very pertinent and practical question. and this is a fact and reason behind most of the failures. I feel farmers don't like to take risk rather they believe by seeing. it is difficult to convince them with theory and logic and they have a set of erratic and non relevant questions. The best method is by result demonstration. If we can create a single farmer who has adopted the technology, and if he convince others then they will be easily motivated. Again, it is important for the field functionary to keep him motivated and follow him. One more thing is all technologies sld not be applied everywhere. If a single project will be failed then the associated people will not show interest for other technologies also.

Regarding initial investments, Farmers never like to invest and take risk. Rather he will spend more for a trusted and proved technology.

This is my personal experience as extension worker in field.

Thanks and Regards

Partha

I guess instead of offering low cost or zero cost technology. The market system for the ultimate product of farmer field must be reviewed. Handsome profit will attract more farmers in the business even it will motivate him for the adoption of need based technology. I suggest, prepare the arena for for players.

In my opinion for the Asian countries like India mainly there are small and marginal farmers who have small land holdings and who do not have sufficient fund to take risk so they give privilege to their traditional techniques rather than modern techniques. And also the communication gap is more between the government or private sector companies with the farmers so they don't want to take risk with their only source of income. Mostly farmers only believe when you show experimental results so we have to reduce this communication gap and make them fully convinced that they will get benefit and will not get any loss.

Due to communication gap between farmers and scientists

Yes, Mubashir Ali Rather, there is a communication gap between farmers and scientists, but why is it there and how do we overcome it? Please refer to my explanation above.

I agree with Dr. Karen

In my opinion, Brazilian farmers are starting to see the benefits of new technologies. One example is the TFAI use, which increased from 15% in 2016 to 20% in 2019. Taking into consideration that we are talking of more than 120,000,000 cows, that is representative. However, there are several pitfalls, especially in transferring the technologies from the universities and research companies to the farms. As mentioned above, the education level of the farmers is fundamental. Moreover, at least here in Brazil and I imagine that in some other developing countries, there is a lack of good governmental politics to ensure that science gets to the field. Most of the time the scientist does not have the skills, time or money to do that. The farmer does not come to the LAB to see what is been developed. The way to it would be through governmental investments in people and institutions to make this technology transfer.

I do not know...are we making research demanded by bureocrats that have no idea about farmers' needs? Do those induced research by funding agencies move us away from curiosity about farmers' everyday problems? Do we make research to gather funds, wages, or we still do research because we love it? What happened to the adventure of discovery? Is Academia responsible for the direct advances in farmers' fields or did they evolve regardless of academic scientific achievements in agriculture? What is the role of the combined powers of farmers, industry, supply chain players, atacadists and logistic players, retailers, and consumers, i.e. the power of free markets? Are we really addressing the needs of human forces that promote wealth, improved life longevity, quality, and cognitive brain powers that, combined, are capable of solving scarcity problems around the world? I do not know...

if farmers have to buy the technology and then apply this technology through the assistance of the scientists for a short space of time, it will not help them. There is no reason for them to adopt if they have to spend money so quickly and fast on something which hasn't provided results. What needs to happen, is to provide this technology to the farmers, work with them at no cost for at least a year or two. This is so hard but this is where the government has to step in and help scientists deliver the technology while training these farmers to adapt to it.

Henry Musoke: I worry, Henry, that you have missed an important point. The first step ... BEFORE starting the R&D ... is to ask the farmers what they want. What do they FEEL that they need. If we do not do that, they will never feel that they are involved. We do not have agree with their answers (we do not criticize!), but it will inform us a lot about the uptake process.

Mr. Graeme, thanks for the response. I'm currently working on a project to help farmers. Right now, we are putting together a survey for the farmers to complete. We are looking for some questions that would trigger their response. If you have some questions please help. We know that farmers, want to do it their own way, we are trying our best to respond to their needs but having correct questions would help us engage with them. I was so inspired by the response that you gave since the beginning of this post in 2013 and I feel that you have some practical experience to learn from. Please advise. Am a current student of Brigham Young University Idaho.

Good to hear what you are planning, Henry. I'm afraid everything I have been talking about here is second-hand ... I learned it from a colleague who teaches and researches "4th generation extension", Dr Jo Sneddon: [email protected]

I suggest you contact here and ask for a list of the sort of questions that she uses to determine 'felt needs'. Tell her that I sent you. Our university staff are under a lot of pressure these days, so let me know ([email protected]) if she does not respond. You can find an example of her work here: http://www.fagro.edu.uy/~agrociencia/index.php/directorio/article/view/236

Thanks indeed, I have dropped her an email. I hope she responds, I would be happy if we can have 4 good questions from her that are not challenging. Our meeting is tomorrow, hence my desperation. Thanks indeed.

Resistance to change is normal and expected thing from uneducated or insentient societies. Education is best option for adopting any type of change.

Ghulam Asghar Sajid Yes, but education is easy to say and hard to do. There is a big difference between 'teaching' (what we teachers do) and 'learning' (what we hope the listeners do). The connection is obvious but often the learning outcome is very poor. Education is not filling in a hole, it is lighting a fire. We need to get the farmers to want to learn. We do that by asking them what they need.

I agree to point of view of Professor Martin.

Cost of technology, ease of application and relative benefits of new technologies could affect farmers' willingness to adopt them

As far as a State like Kerala in India is concerned, farming is mostly non profitable for most of the crops. hence, cultivation is mainly from a subsistence orientation by majority of the farmers. Under such conditions, adoption of improved practices by the farmers is low, except probably when pest/disease attack happens.

One way of improving adoption of practices is to make farming group based mandatorily for some crops under irrigation projects, with the condition that water supply by the Irrigation Dept. will be based on the extent of adoption of improved practices also

Dr. K. Madhava Chandran

Former Senior Principal Scientists and Head of Water Management (Agri) Division, Centre for water Resources, Kozhikode, Kerala, INDIA

email: [email protected]

Dr Chandran ... an interesting answer and, no doubt, subsistence farmers are a real challenge. I know little about cropping in Kerala. My experience in your part of the world is with the livestock farmers, particularly with dairy cattle, and most of my information comes from talking to my colleagues at KVASU. Again this is subsistence, but also mostly women; it seems that they are quite open to advice on the nutrition of their animals. I refer back to my point of May 25: to get the farmers to want to learn, we begin by asking them what they need (the formal term in social science is "felt needs"). My colleagues at KVASU have, I think been doing that.

Dr Graeme B Martin Please

Thanks for your response. I don't know about animal husbandry adoption.

I meant farmers cultivating crops in Kerala INDIA

Dr K Madhava Chandran

The question is relevant in every field. I feel that, the modern social media platforms are revolutionizing the pace of adoption of technology in Kerala. ( May be it is so in many parts of the world). There are hundreds of WhatsApp groups on dairy farming alone. The greatest principle that helps in adoption is the participatory principle. Once progressive farmers themselves assert the usefulness of a technology, it automatically becomes a front line demonstration and all we need to do is just supplement it with science. One of the glaring example is the improved varieties of fodder being cultivated. Labor intensive technologies need more effort and time eg the mastitis prevention kits are highly beneficial but milkers are reluctant to use it properly. Thank you Dr. Madhava, Thank you Professor Graeme B Martin for remembering Kerala and KVASU.

A very good question that should be certainly answered.

Actually, cost is not the main constraining factor that controls the ability of the farmers to use technologies. Factors such as the knowledge and perception of the farmer to the technoghy, benefit of the technology, presence of infrastructure required to use technology, the ease of technoghy use are all important factors should be adequately addressed before judging how much the technologies are used by the farmers.

I see ICTs are very important tools to sustain agriculture sector activities worldwide, and this concept has been rapidly growing specially in the last two year during which covid has imposed most people , not only farmers, to use ICTs for communication. This may help scientists to convey ICTs to the farmers and convince them by its importance.

The following cross sectional study may present answers for your question..

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/352222540_Agro-Livestock_Farming_System_Sustainability_during_the_COVID-19_Era_A_Cross-Sectional_Study_on_the_Role_of_Information_and_Communication_Technologies

Sometimes the said farmers aren’t aware of this technologies & secondly they haven’t seen a first hand evidence of the advantage of this technologies.

In a country like India it is perplexing that the farmers are not being provided with hands on training regarding a particular innovation and even if there are they are confined to few areas.Secondly, the reach-out programs with regard to awareness and execution of a particular cost effective agricultural tool is largely restricted. Moreover, if a particular innovative strategy fails once applied, a farmer may not be able to withstand the loss for many years..So it is necessary to offer a back up plan to the farmer.This will make the farmer feel at ease while shifting from tranditional ways to technological ways.

Dear Atif Khurshid Wani, I understand and I agree. However, I refer back to my point of May 25: to get the farmers to want to learn, we MUST begin by asking them what they need (the formal term in social science is "felt needs").

1. Lack of education

2. Lack of education

3. Lack of education

There were numerous very valid comments pertaining to cost as well as education, awareness etc. I'd like to address from a different financial angle - risk

Worldwide, many farmers work on very small profit margins and are not particularly wealthy. Making any change on a farm brings in an element of risk, which can come in different forms. For example (1) Risk of investing in a technology and it not creating a profitable return on investment. (2) Risk of changing your model - if your system works for you and you can feed your family on it, whilst you want to improve it, if you try and fail, the implications could be severe. The risk is essentially too high.

Yes, Andrew.

But ... I refer back to my point of May 25: to get the farmers to want to learn, we MUST begin by asking them what they need (the formal term in social science is "felt needs"). If we ask, and they say "risk', then you will be right. Meanwhile, its you putting up ideas that you think are theirs.

Graeme B Martin That is true and I'm always careful in that regard. We can always to do more work with and for farmers and I think we're all guilty of falling short on that duty at times.

I have asked and/or been in the room when it's been asked and it is one (of many) things that has been answered. It varies hugely though across the world though, of course.

This is a complex problem influencing by lots of factors. The best way is to ask what products or technologies the farmers need. Then, we resolve their problems in the lab according to their requirements. In addition, we have to reduce the cost of using new products or technologies.

Farmers are not scientists! From my point of view, one of the reasons would be the absence of useful technology companies or dealers! Secondly, most farmers have few resources (land) and little motivation to adopt something new!

I think this question should be answered separately for each country's farmer. With this;

Purchasing power,

It is difficult for farmers to give up the conventional methods they know best,

Lack of technical knowledge about new technology,

The fact that farmlands are very fragmented, etc...

Farmers are not stupid and irrational, as most of us expect. if the technology they get provided do not go with their risk formulation (environmental condition), resource endowment, production, consumption and be communicated by whom they trust most they tend to hesitate to adopt the externally imposed technology.

I hope no-one thinks farmers are stupid! But, what seems 'irrational' depends on your perspective. At the risk of repeating myself, again: to get the farmers to change, we MUST begin by asking them what they need (the formal term in social science is "felt needs"). And, we must listen! Then see if our proposed change, can help them. And then we explain. It is important that they own the change.

Precisely, Graeme B Martin , “You insist that there is something a machine cannot do. If you will tell me precisely what it is that a machine cannot do, then I can always make a machine which will do just that!” John von Neumann, 1948.

The majority of farmers, in my opinion, are not unreasonable and readily adopt technologies that suit their needs from a variety of perspectives. However, most technologies are placed on hold, and there are weak connections between academics, research organizations and extension agencies to encourage farmers to adopt new technology.

This is correct. The questions remaining are:

1) Why are there weak connections when academics, research organizations and extension agencies all have the same goal?

2) What should we do solve the problem?

My view is that the farmers should asked about their 'felt needs'. What do they feel they need? This should be done before the research is started. This simple step will ensure that the farmers feel like they 'own' the research. They will then be more interested in implementing the outcomes.

In China, I think it is too expensive for farmers to really adopt scientists' researches, most of them are protected by patents, others are used for publishing papers, which can never read by farmers.

Very interesting, Dr Niu. The problem of research findings being too expense is something that scientists should find out, from the farmers, before starting the research. Of course, farmers should not control the direction of all research ... we need basic discoveries that, with luck, will help farmers many years into the future.

Respected all

With days we are deviating what actually needed in the field and more focussed on high impact journal publication. The concept sld be field based not for academic excellence.. the gap is more and more widened. The possible approch sld be creation of research in each field functioning departments..

Regards

If the national reseach system is like a train, then top scientists is the head, then the general researchers and young scientists, then graduate students, then college students..., I am afraid farmers are not in the train at all. So the problem is researchers don't really talk to the farmers, and farmers sometimes don't believe in experts.

I think that, there are several reasons why farmers may not adopt technologies generated by scientists. First i think that the cost of implementing new technology can be a significant barrier for farmers, especially if they operate on a small scale. Also, farmers may not be aware of new technologies that are available to them.or scientists and researchers may not effectively communicate the benefits and potential of their innovations to them, leading to a lack of adoption.

Besides, some technologies may be too complex for farmers to use without adequate training and support. Also, farmers may be hesitant to adopt new practices that conflict with their values or beliefs. Or maybe because they don't trust the scientists who often come up with fancy solutions that are impractical, expensive or risky. Who knows?