Christina H. Gladwin, “Cognitive Strategies and Adoption Decisions: A Case Study of Nonadoption of an Agronomic Recommendation,” Economic Development and Cultural Change 28, no. 1 (Oct. 1979), 155-173.

Notes

• 169 – “Given the results of testing the model of the decision to fertilize twice, it should be clear why farmers did not adopt the recommendation of the Plan to fertilize at planting and the second weeding. Since the sample was only representative of the village, the conclusions only hold for one village in the project area. However, since the rainfall and soil patterns were fairly constant over the project region, a further regional decision study might draw similar conclusions about why farmers do not fertilize at planting. Why project planners made the recommendation is not clear. Nowhere in CIMMYT’s publications on the Plan Puebla is there strong experimental evidence for the recommendation. And, while increases in yields of 0.58-1.35 tons per hectare due to adoption of the Plan Puebla package have been estimated, no assessment of the increase in yields due to adoption of just this recommendation has been made. Perhaps project planners assumed that farmers made ‘all or nothing’ adoption decisions rather than rationally assessing each recommendation of the package separately on its own merits.”
• 170 – “In my judgment, the failure of this recommendation to diffuse shows that an understanding of the logic behind the production decisions that comprise the traditional way, rather than just surveys gathering data on socioeconomic status and facts about production, is necessary for a successful rural development project. Knowledge of soi and rainfall conditions faced by the farmer is useful only if project planners also understand how farmers take these agroclimatic conditions into consideration while making their production decisions. Knowledge of farmers’ reasoning is as necessary an input to a successful rural development project as is agronomists’ or economists’ reasoning from a distance.”