Do smallholder farmers belong to the same adopter category? An assessment of smallholder farmers innovation adopter categories in Ghana

Abstract

More often than not, good innovations introduced to farmers failed to be adopted or diffused among them, simply because the complexities and the variations in farmers' innovation adoption are not well explore. This study aims to analyse the innovation adopter categories that smallholder farmers belong to in Ghana and how their socioeconomic attributes influence their innovativeness. A survey was employed to gather information from smallholder farmers in Ghana. The data obtained from the survey were analysed using the SPSS version 22 and the Individual Innovativeness (II) scales. The hypotheses were tested using the Logistic regression model. The results indicated a large number (36.6%) of the smallholder farmers belong to the late majority of the innovation adopter category. Also, more than three-quarters of the farmers were classified as low innovators. Factors such as farmer education and gender were found to be insignificant to their innovativeness, while other prominent factors were significant to farmers' innovativeness. The study also made a novel revelation on Roger's innovation adopter categorisation values. The study concluded that smallholder farmers in the study area do not belong to a homogenous innovation adopter category. Also, educated farmers without income are less innovative. It was therefore recommended that stakeholders introducing new technologies to smallholder farmers should develop attractive marketing packages combined with videos and pictures to educate farmers on the new products, to speed up adoption.