10.9 Ways to assess adoptions

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One of the questions of interest to all members of a FSD team is to what extent farmers are adopting recommended practices. Adoption analysis can be performed on technologies that have been tested extensively in FMFI trials within ? recommendation domain and are ready for extension. The potential for adoption of the technology can be assessed by determining the adoption among the farmers who performed the final verification (FMFI) trials on the technology. It also may be of interest to know how many farmers are adopting technologies that they have been testing on a more limited scale as part of a research programme.

It is desirable to know whether farmers are likely to adopt a particular technology before it is presented on a large scale through the extension system. If farmers are not willing to adopt the technology after the final large - scale testing, it may need to be modified to increase acceptability.

TABLE 10,6: RELIABILITY OF THE RETURNS PER UNIT OF LAND AND LABOUR FROM DOUBLE PLOUGHING, FRANCISTOWN, BOTSWANA, 1985-87

a. The figures in this table are calculated from the trials analyzed in Table 10,5.
b. These results indicate the comparison for double ploughing a single hectare or single ploughing two hectares when the first hectare is planted at the time of the first ploughing. However, the combined results from this planting and from the hectare planted on the same day as double ploughing do not really provide a valid comparison with double ploughing, because it is recommended that the first ploughing be done when there is not enough soil moisture for planting (i.e., the yield for planting at this time would approach zero), The figures in brackets reflect the average values of the two hectares combined.
c. Average weeding time on these plots was 89 hours/two hectares

There are several ways to assess the likelihood of adoption of a technology,

• The researchers make an assessment of the adoptability of each technology through their analysis of the technological, economic, and social factors that they think are important to farmers.
• Observations and discussions with farmers during the course of testing, particularly during a final large-scale verification (FMFI) test, can give an indication of problems and provide the researcher with a qualitative assessment of the likelihood of adoption.
• A formal end-of-season survey of farmers or PRA techniques can be used to assess their plans to adopt the new technology and determine any problems encountered,
• The best approach is to examine actual adoption by conducting a survey one or two years following the large-scale testing of a technology to determine whether farmers who participated in the testing actually have adopted the practice and to what extent,
• A study of other farmers in the area (i.e., those not involved in the testing of the technology) also can be made to determine the extent of horizontal or farmer-to-farmer diffusion.

TABLE 10.7. INFLUENCE OF SOIL TYPE ON SORGHUM GRAIN YIELD AS A RESULT OF DOUBLE PLOUGHING, MAHALAPYE, BOTSWANA, 1984-87^a

a. Data source: Researcher managed and implemented (RMRI) sorghum production factorial trial, 1984-87. Each season includes two replications.
b. *** denotes statistical significance for the difference in the comparison at a 0.001 probability level, n.s denotes no significant difference,

Source: Heinrich et al, 1990. This is also source of the material in Table 10,8.

The first three approaches above are qualitative in nature and measure farmers' intentions either as expressed or deduced by researchers. The last two approaches measure actual adoption and are quantitative in nature.

One approach to quantifying adoption is to use the index of acceptability suggested by Hildebrand and Poey [1985: pp. 122-123]. To determine the index of acceptability for a particular technology, information is collected from farmers one or two years after they have participated in large-scale testing of a technology. Farmers are asked if they are using the technology, and if so, on what proportion of the area of the particular crop for which it was recommended. An index of acceptability then can be calculated as follows:

I_a = (C x A) ¸ 100

Where:

I_a = Index of acceptability
C = The percentage of the farmers interviewed who participated in the large scale testing and who were using the technology on at least part of the crop at the time of the interview.

TABLE 10.8: GUIDELINES FOR WHEN TO USE EARLY PLOUGHING^a

a. A key to the abbreviations and terms used in the table is as follows:

1, 2, 3 refer to different possible strategies for that particular time of season and soil moisture level.

A = From among those farmers who used the practice that year? the percentage of the area they planted with the new technology compared to the total area planted to the particular crop (e.g., the area planted to a new sorghum technology as a percentage of the total area planted to sorghum).

For example, if 150 farmers participated in the test of a double-ploughing technology, and after two years a survey found that 65 were using double ploughing on at least part of the land they planted, then 'C' would be 65 . 150 = 43 percent, The average area planted using double ploughing by the 65 farmers was 4.3 hectares. These same farmers planted an average of 6.1 total hectares. Thus, 'A' would be 4,3 . 6,1 = 70 percent, The index of acceptability would be (43 x 70) .- 100 = 30,1,

BOX 10.4: ACCEPTABILITY INDICES CAN PROVIDE USEFUL INSIGHTS ON SPONTANEOUS ADOPTION

In 1989, a study of spontaneous adoption was undertaken in one region of Botswana [Wortnan, Williams et al, 19901, The degrees of adoption of a number of technologies were assessed, including double ploughing, row planting, combination of double ploughing and row planting, and use of fertilizer. These were technologies that the FSD team had tested with farmers over the years.

The results indicated that 26 percent of the interviewed farmers had spontaneously adopted at least one of the technologies, On average, 35 percent of the crop land planted by adopters was devoted to the new technologies. Overall, the index of acceptability amounted to 9.2. Some additional insights obtained from examining the results were:

• How complicated the technology is to implement affected the adoption. The relatively simple double-ploughing technology had an index of acceptability of 26 compared to the more complicated (i.e., requiring more management skills) row-planting technology, which had an index of acceptability of 14.
• As might be expected, wealth influenced adoption, Wealthier farmers were more likely to adopt technologies, with an index of acceptability of 19 for farmers owning more than 40 cattle compared to 0.7 for the poorest farmers who owned no cattle.
• The environment in which the household operates is important in determining adoption, with the farmers from a more 'progressive' village having an index of acceptability of 19 compared to I for the farmers from a more 'traditional' village.

A rule of thumb for interpreting the index of acceptability is that a technology has a good chance of being adopted if I_a exceeds 25 and 'C' is equal to or greater than 50 [Hildebrand and Poey, 1985: p. 122]. This is a measure of acceptability to the farmer and does not reflect the impact of the technology. It is also important to consider the magnitude of both 'C' and 'A,, It is possible to have a very low 'C,, indicating that few farmers are adopting the technology, combined with a high 'A,, indicating that those using the technology were using it on a large portion of the land planted to the crop, This could be because a sub-group of the recommendation-domain farmers find the technology particularly valuable, although it is not accepted by most farmers, This also may indicate that different recommendation domains are present. The opposite situation, where a large number of farmers are using the technology on a small portion of the area planted to the crop, could indicate that farmers are still testing the technology, are not yet convinced that it should be 'adopted', or have adopted the technology as a component of a more complex cropping system. An additional survey in the following year may be valuable in assessing the adoption, or some modification may be necessary to promote adoption.

The index of acceptability procedure is designed for analysing the adoption of a particular technology, usually for a single crop, for farmers in a specific recommendation domain (Box 10.4), If it is used to measure adoption under other circumstances, such as a measure of spontaneous adoption on a range of new technologies, the interpretation of the results will be different, and the numbers suggested above probably will not be relevant. Instead, comparison of the index of acceptability between technologies or by farmer characteristics (i.e., indicating possible recommendation domain delineations) may be of value.

Finally, as indicated in an earlier section (Section 5.10.2) increasing emphasis is being placed now on looking at the impact of research as a whole. Adoption of technologies developed earlier by the research system and disseminated through the extension system is considered an important indicator of the return from such investments. Methodologies for undertaking such studies now are becoming readily available -- see, for example, CIMMYT [1993].

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