Following Agricultural Innovations: Insights from Implementation Research in Ghana and Benin
Agricultural innovations have improved productivity, resilience, and food systems, contributing to food security and rural development. Despite these benefits, smallholder farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa, who account for the majority of agricultural production and employment, continue to adopt innovations more slowly and less intensively than farmers in other regions.
This persistent adoption gap limits the capacity of agricultural systems to respond to climate change, market volatility, and population growth. Multiple, interconnected factors shape adoption outcomes. Many innovations require financial, labour, or infrastructural inputs that exceed the capacities of resource-constrained households. Others demand changes in farm organisation, production cycles, or social arrangements. Socio-cultural factors, including gender norms, decision-making structures, and risk perceptions, further influence adoption behaviour. These dynamics highlight the need for approaches that better align innovation design and implementation with local realities. Innovation adoption is thus not a single event but a multi-step socio-technical process involving research, institutional arrangements, and everyday farming practices.
This presentation will provide preliminary results after following the innovation development processes of the COINS and DecLaRe projects based on the “following the innovation” approach. Using qualitative methods, the study followed the development and implementation of integrated soil fertility management and fertilizer microdosing in northern Ghana, as well as local cheese processing and fertilizer microdosing in northern Benin. Quantitative methods were used to retrospectively analyse adoption patterns and perceptions among farmers and stakeholders not directly involved in the innovation processes. By combining prospective and retrospective analysis, this study provides preliminary insights into how implementation processes and local contexts shape innovation adoption, with implications for implementation research and agricultural development practice.
