Research Series Issue 63: The adoption of improved agricultural technologies - A meta-analysis for Africa

Understanding the determinants of improved agricultural technology adoption is an important component of increasing agricultural productivity and incomes of smallholders to reduce poverty and hunger. In this paper, particular attention is given to the identification and promotion of productivity and resilience enhancing agricultural practices.

Although numerous seminal reviews of this literature have been published, most of these were theoretical or conceptual reviews and focus on earlier literature from continents other than Africa, which is the continent facing the biggest productivity challenge now.

The authors synthesize the findings of this literature with a focus on Africa using a meta-data set that brings together the results of 168 recently published papers. They find that most of this literature focuses on agronomic practices and that agroforestry and livestock related studies make up less than one fifth of the total published papers.

Eleven determinants, primarily those related to information access, wealth indicators and tenure security, are found to increase adoption more than chance would dictate in the literature. The findings provide evidence to support recommendations for future policy and research.