Continued adoption
After tryout, farmers rely on their own on-farm information
and experience to decide whether or not the profitability of the
technology is high enough to further continue its use. This is
what Lindner et al. (1982) call the trial stage. The continued
adoption decision of farmers critically differs from the preceding
awareness and tryout stage. While awareness and tryout
depend on information farmers receive from outside, and
hence on extension interventions, continued adoption critically
depends on the returns to the technology as experienced
by individual farmers during tryout. Yet, these returns may be
influenced by the farmers’ access to information during the
awareness and tryout stage. Farmers who are better informed
about the application modalities of the technology may have a
higher return from their on-farm tryout, and be more likely to
continue adoption. In addition, better informed farmers may
have more realistic expectations about returns, which could increase
the likelihood of continued adoption (Abadi Ghadim &
Pannell, 1999; Marra et al., 2003). If the realized returns are
far below expected returns, farmers might be disappointed
and abandon the technology, even if returns are positive. Also,
if labor and input requirements are higher than expected,
farmers may stop using the technology. For example, Kijima
et al. (2011) point out that high dropout rates in the adoption
of new rice varieties in Uganda can be explained by unrealistic
expectations about returns and high labor intensity of the
technology