Determinants of mechanized technology adoption in smallholder agriculture: Implications for agricultural policy

Abstract

Agricultural mechanization is viewed as a tool for transforming agriculture in the Global South. Despite gaining traction among governments across sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), with many countries now having dedicated agricultural mechanization subsidy programs, recent evidence shows that adoption is not universal among farmers. While adoption of mechanized agriculture is generally theorized as an outcome of the interaction of cultural, political, ecological, and socioeconomic factors, little is known about the specific factors that may be driving ongoing differences in the adoption of mechanized agricultural technologies by smallholder farmers in semi-arid Ghana. Using a cross-sectional survey (n = 1100) with smallholder farmers, we explored the determinants of the adoption of mechanized technologies. Results from the logistic regression analysis indicate that remittances (OR=12.27; P < 0.001), access to formal (OR=4.27; P < 0.001) and informal (OR=9.65; P < 0.001) credit, farm labor (OR=0.88; P < 0.01), farm size (OR=1.83; P < 0.001) and local agricultural information sources (OR=0.50; P < 0.01), emerged as significant correlates of mechanized technology adoption among smallholder farmers. The standardized beta coefficients further revealed that access to credit and remittances were the strongest predictors of mechanized technology adoption. These findings highlight the potentially strong role of economic factors in shaping mechanized technology adoption in smallholder farming contexts. Coupled with the fact that a significant proportion of farmers are yet to adopt these technologies, there is a need to rethink the agricultural transformation agenda of governments. There are two potential ways to address the needs of poorer farming households who are unable to afford mechanized technologies: the introduction of more subsidies and the promotion of alternative low-cost techniques of food production. However, given the failure of existing mechanization packages to benefit many farmers, governments need to simultaneously promote alternative production methods like agroecology which do not rely on mechanized technologies.