Farm Context and Farmers’ Perceptions of the Compatibility, Complexity and Relative Advantage of Innovations

Agriculture is under increasing pressure to change practices and technologies due to climate change, market forces and community pressures. The strongest influences on farmers’ adoption of practices and technologies are their perceptions of the relevant benefits and costs. Differences in the fine-grained characteristics of farm systems can lead to diversity in farmers’ perceptions. Where this is the case, the rate of adoption is best increased through product development rather than promotion. The extent to which differences in the characteristics of farm systems translate into diversity in farmers’ perceptions of innovations has rarely been explored. Our purpose was to investigate whether the diversity in farmers’ perceptions of practices correlated with fine-grained differences in the characteristics of their farm systems using survey data on four management practices used by livestock farmers in New Zealand. We found that the diversity in farmers’ perceptions did correlate with subtle differences in a variety of characteristics of farm systems. This result has important implications for research, extension and policy.