| Titre |
Learning agriculture in rural areas: the drivers of knowledge acquisition and farming practices by rice farmers in West Africa |
| Auteurs |
Zossou Espérance [1],
Arouna Aminou [2],
Diagne Aliou [3],
Agboh-Noameshie Afiavi Rita [4],
|
| Journal: |
The Journal of Agricultural Education and Extension |
| Catégorie Journal: |
Internationale |
| Impact factor: |
0 |
| Volume Journal: |
26 |
| DOI: |
10.1080/1389224X.2019.1702066 |
| Resume |
Purpose: This paper explores the main factors that influence
farmers in acquiring agricultural knowledge and adopting
technologies with the aim of better understanding the agricultural
innovation systems in West Africa.
Design/Methodology/Approach: We use data collected between
2013 and 2014 across rice hubs in five West African countries:
Benin, Côte d’Ivoire, Niger, Nigeria and Togo. In total, 499
household heads were surveyed using a stratified random
sampling technique. Data are analyzed with the Mann–Whitney–
Wilcoxon test and the Poisson regression.
Findings: The findings show that farmers’ knowledge is influenced
by a range of factors, including household size, training, access to
formal and informal knowledge sources and community
socioeconomic status. Farmers rely heavily on personal
experiences and fellow farmers to adopt technologies.
Practical implications: The study suggests that key policies for
strengthening the innovation systems are those that help farmers
access both formal and informal knowledge sources, credit
services, better welfare and information and communication tools.
Theoretical implications: The study shows the need to consider
both extrinsic factors (e.g. characteristics of the technology and
attributes of the external environment) and intrinsic factors (e.g.
knowledge, perceptions and attitudes of the potential adopter
towards the innovation) when analyzing the decision process
toward technology adoption in West Africa.
Originality/Value: This initiative is to identify the conditions that
will enable a more inclusive technology development and
diffusion process. This is important because agricultural extension
is currently undergoing a deep restructuring focused on
privatizing the agricultural services in developing countries
characterized by a low literacy rate. |
| Mots clés |
Rural learning; agricultural
knowledge; agricultural
practices; determinants; rice
crop; West Africa |
| Pages |
291 - 306 |
| Fichier |
 (PDF) |