FACTORS INFLUENCING ADOPTION OF CROP AND FORAGE RELATED AND ANIMAL HUSBANDRY TECHNOLOGIES BY SMALL-SCALE DAIRY FARMERS IN CENTRAL MEXICO

In order to identify factors that constrain or favour adoption of five crop or forage related and six animal husbandry technologies promoted by government to small-scale dairy farmers, a field survey was conducted with 115 farmers. A binary logistic regression model was fitted to identify socioeconomic and farm variables explaining the technology adoption. Factors that favoured technology adoption were based on perceived usefulness, productivity and benefits to the farm, farmer's skills and farm characteristics; moreover farmers were more willing to use technologies which required low levels of investment such as de-worming, vaccines, and data recording. Constraints were related to economic restrictions, lack of knowledge, lack of land, herd size, lack of extension advice, lack of information about government programmes, requirements associated with applying for government financial support, and technologies considered to be of little or no importance to the farm such as herbicides, artificial insemination (AI) and milking machines. Adoption of crop or forage related and animal husbandry technologies was significantly associated (p < 0.05) with socioeconomic (farmer's education, farmer's experience, farmer's wealth status) and farm characteristics (herd size, cows in production, milk yield, total hectares and technological level). It is concluded that the approach implemented in this study enables identification of key factors together with the communication approaches that have been successful.