See abstract in folder of Document No. D06143., Abstract of poster presentation at North American Colleges and Teachers of Agriculture conference, Athens, Georgia, June 16-20., "eXtension has not been adopted among Iowa Extension professionals as founders intended it would be and has the potential to become a disruptive innovation..." Only 15 percent of study participants indicated using eXtension in their work.
Online from UI Library subscription., Study examined interpersonal influence during the diffusion of agricultural innovation in a rural district of Pakistan. Findings revealed that interpersonal communication had a major role in agricultural activities, particularly that farmers were motivated through face-to-face discussion.
This study empirically examined the effects of the participatory approach on the adoption of new crop varieties and agricultural practices. Particularly, we focused on the social network structure and examined how the introduced technologies diffused through networks in rural Ethiopia. Our empirical results indicate that if farmers knew and trusted fellow participants, the probability of adopting a new variety increased by 25 percentage points. However, this network had no statistical impact on the diffusion of new agricultural practices. We conclude that the participatory approach has great potential in the adoption of new crop varieties through the social networks of farmers in Ethiopia.