Abstract
Efforts of national governments and international agencies aimed at alleviating hunger and poverty are often undermined by lack of long-term adoption of agricultural innovations. Studies commonly explain farmers’ adoption decisions using household general determinants, yet decision-making, particularly for under-resourced smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa, is a complex process. Using the case of conservation agriculture [CA], this article analyses dis-adoption of agricultural technologies by examining multiple domains of Malawi’s CA innovation system and how these influence farmer decision-making. It analyses institutional arrangements of CA promoters, national policies and farmers’ experiences. From this, we empirically derive a multifaceted dis-adoption drivers’ framework to explain CA dis-adoption in smallholder farming systems. Our findings reveal that adverse features in national policies, institutional arrangements, technological attributes and social cultural dimensions all lead to unfavourable experiences of CA for smallholder farmers, which can culminate in dis-adoption. The CA dis-adoption drivers’ framework we develop in this study provides a useful troubleshooting tool. It can be used to guide improvements in the design and implementation of project-based interventions seeking long-term adoption of agricultural innovations across sub-Saharan Africa.
Highlights
Ending poverty and hunger remain unaccomplished global goals and have become pressing concerns of national governments and international agencies (Food and Agriculture Organisation [FAO], 2017)
Purposive sampling (Onwuegbuzie, Dickinson, Leech & Zoran, 2009) was used to identify experts for interviews to understand if and how institutional arrangements of CA promoters lead to dis-adoption. 52 key informants with in-depth knowledge of CA were interviewed face to face
Synthesis of our findings reveals that weak CA integration in key policies and lack of coherence in Malawi’s agricultural policies and/or their implementation arrangements, exert a critical influence on dis-adoption by propagating institutional inefficiencies that undermine farmers’ continued adoption of CA
Summary
Ending poverty and hunger remain unaccomplished global goals and have become pressing concerns of national governments and international agencies (Food and Agriculture Organisation [FAO], 2017). The challenge remains despite on-going investments in perceived new agricultural innovations aimed at improving agricultural productivity, food security and income. Conservation agriculture [CA] is one such innovation, widely promoted among smallholder farmers to improve agricultural yields, income, reduce cost of production and for building resilience to climate change impacts (FAO, 2018). While studies have shown CA success in some areas (Steward et al, 2018; Kassam, Friedrich & Derpsch, 2019), others have reported contrary findings (Giller, Witter, Corbeels & Tittonell, 2009; Cheesman, Andersson & Frossard, 2017). Widespread dis-adoption seems to persist especially among under-resourced smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa (Glover, Sumberg & Andersson, 2016)
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