A Theoretical Framework for Tracking Farmers’ Intention for Adoption of Organic Agriculture

Abstract

This paper reviews the theories employed to explain factors behind farmers’ adoption of organic agriculture and synthesises a theoretical framework for future research. The results suggest that organic agriculture adoption is affected by a multitude of intrinsic and extrinsic factors. While the theories of reasoned action, planned behaviour, goal framing, and resilience captured the role of intrinsic factors, the theories of social capital, embeddedness, agglomeration, transaction cost, systems, rent and institutional theory try to capture the role of such extrinsic factors. However, no single theory suffices to capture all the factors. Thus, a holistic framework to study the intrinsic and extrinsic factors behind organic farming adoption, in totality, is provided. This theoretical framework can further be invoked to build a conceptual framework that may be tested in various country and regional contexts to establish the relative significance of all the factors. Such an exercise may be an important input in policy formulation for promoting organic farming. The policymakers can deploy this framework to commission research studies to look into the appropriateness and effectiveness of policy instruments in particular situations.