Adoption of innovations by Costa Rican livestock producers under different levels of extension intensity: Predicted versus observed behaviour

The development of efficient agricultural extension strategies is dependent on the accurate prediction of farmer response to diverse extension messages and methods of delivery. Most research on adoption behaviour has concentrated on farmer characteristics as the main determinants of adoption rates. This paper focuses attention on extension agency activities (EAA) as an equally important variable. Ex-ante studies of three farmer populations predicted the existence of two distinct adoption scenarios; namely, managerial capacity (MC) dependent, where farmer MC plays an important role in adoption and MC independent, where the level of farmer MC does not appear to be involved in the adoption process. An experiment involving 108 farmers divided amongst four extension treatments was carried out to test the ex-ante hypotheses. Of the nine system × technology combinations tested, five were correctly predicted from the ex-ante model. This paper details reasons for the model's failure to predict accurately the four remaining cases. It is concluded that not only farmer MC and EAA, but also variables associated with economic climate, attributes of innovations, existence of structural constraints and appropriateness of technologies should be incorporated into the model in order to improve the predictability of adoption behaviour based on ex-ante studies.