Abstract
The research described in this article examines influences on long-term
sustainability (LTS) of new technologies among Jamaican peanut farmers
and finds that community context is most important. Several innovations
introduced by an extension project were adopted to some extent, and
some are still maintained. The research examines the influences on
LTS of traditional adoption/diffusion characteristics of farmers,
e.g. education, income, and age, and the community context in which
farmers operate. To examine LTS--the dependent variables--the study
focuses on labor-saving devices, e.g. shellers, sprayers, and strippers,
which were introduced to increase productivity and lower labor costs.
The study compares the impact of traditional adoption theory variables
with community socioeconomic centrality, i.e. the totality of regional
political, economic, and social access, as well as local organization
membership, and social contact linkages (significant interaction
with neighbors). Using regression analysis the results indicate that
individual and farm characteristics make no difference, and local
interpersonal contact networks make little difference, when local
church membership (negatively related to LTS), and a community's
socioeconomic centrality within the parish (positively related to
LTS) are introduced as variables. Community `socioeconomic centrality',
measured by whether a community has access to regional bus service,
is the strongest predictor of high levels of long-term sustainable
adoption in the surrounding farms. This suggests that the chances
of LTS are greatly enhanced if the right communities are chosen and,
therefore, advance study of potential target communities seems essential.
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