A social marketing framework for innovation and technology adoption: The case of agricultural extension in India

Agriculture is the mainstay in developing economies and is a major source of livelihood for a large portion of the world’s population. The field of agriculture and agribusiness has moved towards diversification, commercialization and sustainability. There is a crying need to protect the environment while improving global food security and building social capital in rural areas. As a result, it has become significant that new technologies and innovations in agriculture be disseminated to farmers so that they gain knowledge about innovations while ensuring their use in the ways originally intended. Agricultural Extension has an important role to play in this changing scenario of agriculture, business and policy. The objective of the paper is to propose a framework for new technology adoption in the context of agricultural extension using the lens of the theory of planned behavior and concepts of social marketing. The paper first presents a review of literature on the Training and Visit System and the Private system of agricultural extension and uncovers its drawbacks. As a potential solution to the existing inefficient systems, a social marketing framework for new technology adoption in agricultural extension is proposed using a case study of Agricultural Technology Management Agency in India. Findings from the case suggest that inclusion of a marketing component along with the existing educational approach to extension is likely to increase adoption of new technology and helps farmers overcome factors like input or market unavailability. It also helps in need based targeting rather than adopting a one-size fits all approach.