Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
15.4 CONCLUSIONS
Research focused on factors affecting the adoption of soil and water conservation
production systems among subsistence farmers throughout the world consistently
indicates that the traditional diffusion model is a useful approach for understand-
ing why potential adopters elect to adopt or reject conservation production systems.
Existing literature revealed that the most important factors shown to influence the
adoption of soil and water conservation production systems among subsistence farm-
ers in lesser-scale societies are as follows: access to information about soil and water
conservation problems, access to information about possible solutions to environ-
mental problems, access to technical training to develop requisite skills to effec-
tively implement conservation production systems, access to information delivery
systems that disseminate relevant agroecological information about local socioenvi-
ronmental situations, access to economic resources to adopt requisite conservation
farming inputs, access to institutions that make local and national markets available
to subsistence farmers, creation of national economic policies that encourage the
production of food and fiber in an efficient manner, creation and implementation of
national land tenure policies that ensure subsistence farmers will be able to capture
the benefits from investments in conservation, creation of institutions to make credit
available to subsistence farmers so they may purchase requisite inputs to implement
farming conservation systems, access to local and national infrastructures to provide
opportunity for social mobility of individual subsistence farmers within the com-
munity and society, creation and enforcement of national soil and water conserva-
tion policies to protect soil and water resources, and creation of national policies to
address socioeconomic problems associated with acute poverty so that subsistence
farmers will be better able to assume risks associated with the adoption of conserva-
tion farming systems at the farm level. Each of these factors is closely aligned with
several components of the traditional diffusion model.
The diffusion model strongly suggests that subsistence farmers in lesser-scale
societies must be provided detailed information about the nature of environmental
problems that result from use of inappropriate agricultural production systems. They
also must be provided information that demonstrates how various conservation pro-
duction systems will resolve the identified problems. The model states that farmers
must have access to learning opportunities to develop the human skills to implement
the conservation production systems they are considering. Potential adopters must
also have access to institutional structures that can provide them access to economic
resources to purchase requisite inputs to adopt the conservation production systems
being considered. The model posits that institutional structures must be put into
place to provide relevant and reliable information about agricultural issues that are
appropriate for the region into which conservation innovations are being introduced.
Governments must introduce antipoverty programs that will provide subsistence
farmers with education and training to become integrated members of society, and
with the infrastructures to remove the many barriers to adoption of conservation
production systems.
While the traditional diffusion model can be extremely useful in the identification
of required actions to promote adoption of conservation production systems within
