Author
Listed:
- Jungklaus, Sven-Oliver
- Happe, Kathrin
Abstract
If applied properly conservation tillage is a technology which can increase farms economic situation through reducing energy input and saving time for operations and on the other hand is beneficial for the environment and plant growing through reducing the risk of erosion and preserving soil moisture. Adoption of a conservation tillage systems not only means having the appropriate machinery (e.g. disc harrows or harrows), but also the respective abilities and knowledge of how to use the machinery to serve the farmer's objectives. Several studies have investigated the impact of human capital on technology adoption in agriculture, for example, by considering variables such as schooling, age, and contact to extension agents. However, in the decision making process a farmer's perception of characteristics of a new technology such as its relative advantage, compatibility and complexity forms the persuasion of an individual to adopt or to reject an innovation. For the most, studies on technology adoption have been carried out for developing countries and the American continent. However, up to now there has been hardly any research on the adoption of agricultural technology in transition countries. This is surprising as one could have expected changes in farmers' adoption behaviour since the start of transition. In this paper we investigate farmers' perceptions and attitudes towards the adoption and use of conservation tillage systems in North-East Bulgaria. In particular, we study whether information deficits and knowledge gaps about the use of conservation tillage systems determine the farmers' perceptions and attitudes. We base our analysis on a case study involving interviews with 35 farm managers in the region. Results suggest that knowledge gaps and information deficits determine the adequate use of conservation tillage practices. Although farms have some machinery which can be used for conservation tillage practices (e.g. harrows), results suggest that farms do so very selectively. Farms perceive the technology as being appropriate only for a limited range of crops (e.g. cereals). For all other crops (including maize) it is not considered as a proper tillage system. Farmers' attitudes towards conservation tillage appears to contradict reasons accredited to conservation tillage in literature. Approved advantages of conservation tillage, for example the preservation of soil moisture are not connected by farmers with this system and perceived to be better in the conventional tillage system.
Suggested Citation
Jungklaus, Sven-Oliver & Happe, Kathrin, 2007.
"AP - Non-adoption Of Conservation Tillage Because Of Knowledge Gaps? A Case Study From North-east Bulgaria,"
16th Congress, Cork, Ireland, July 15-20, 2007
345449, International Farm Management Association.
Handle:
RePEc:ags:ifma07:345449
DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.345449
Download full text from publisher
Corrections
All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ags:ifma07:345449. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.
If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.
We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .
If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.
For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: AgEcon Search (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ifmaaea.html .
Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through
the various RePEc services.