A Framework to Study Farmers Decisions on Adoption of Agromet Advisories Services for Risk Management: Insights from Theory of Planned Behavior.

Background: Climate change is emerging as a major threat on agriculture, food security and livelihood of millions of people in many places of the world. Agromet advisories services is such a climate resilient technology which provides the valuable information about all agricultural operations from land preparation sowing to harvest based on weather forecasting. There have been plenty of studies investigating farmers’ decision to adopt an innovation but a lot of more segregated studies exist, highlighting the importance of individual factors affecting adoption. Most of the theoretical models on adoption of innovation have tended to present discipline guided explanations to the adoption decision, although adoption is subject to a combination of social, economic, psychological, as well as cultural factors. Methods: The aim of the paper is to present a framework to study farmer’s decision with respect to adoption of AAS. Under aegis of NICRA, Agromet Advisories are provided to the farmers through its 121 Krishi Vigyan Kendra located in India. The agromet advsiories along with weather data gives crop specific recommendations. Generally, these advisories ae given to farmers two times in a week. The developed framework will be used to study their intention to adopt these AAS. Extensive review of literature on the adoption of innovation in agriculture that was based on TPB or theory of reasoned change (TRA) was carried out. Result: Various factors were taken into consideration like the demographic variables, socio- psychological constructs for explaining the adoption decisions. The framework developed for the study is an extended version of ajzen’s Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB). In addition to the traditional construct i.e intention, perceived behavioural control and subjective norms, perceived usefulness was added to the extended version of TPB to study the adoption of Agromet Advisories Services (AAS). The framework will help the academician, policy makers and other stakeholder to develop different perspectives of farmer’s decision making in adoption of AAS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]