ADOPT is the Adoption and Diffusion Outcome Prediction Tool. It is now available as an online version, replacing the spreadsheet that has over 1000 users.

I’ve previous talked about how agricultural scientists, extension agents, policy makers and suppliers need to be able to predict how farmers will respond to a new practice or technology (PD203). How many farmers will adopt the new practice, and how quickly will they do so? This knowledge can influence research priorities, reserach funding decisions, the design and emphasis of extension campaigns, and the effectiveness of agricultural policies.

Although there is any amount of research exploring factors that influenced past adoption of novel practices by farmers, there has been very little effort to convert all that knowledge into a prediction tool.

A team of us developed ADOPT to fill that gap. There have been over 1000 downloads of the spreadsheet tool we developed, which comes in two versions: for developed and developing countries.

Now we have released an online version that superscedes the spreadsheet version for developed countries (we’re still working on the developing-country online version). It has a number of new features that make it even more useful and informative.

If you’d like a to investigate it, head over to adopt.csiro.au. You’ll need to create an account, and then you can explore the tool for free.

There is also an option to register for a full license, costing A$49, which gives you access to more results, a project report, and an unlimited number of assessments for one year.

Meanwhile, our journal paper about ADOPT in Agricultural Systems continues to be in their top 10 most downloaded papers (as of 9 June 2018). There have been around 10,000 downloads of the paper since it went online in late 2017. Feel free to get one yourself – it’s free and doesn’t require a subscription.

Further reading

Kuehne, G., Llewellyn, R., Pannell, D.J., Wilkinson, R., Dolling, P., Ouzman, J. and Ewing, M. (2017). Predicting farmer uptake of new agricultural practices: a tool for research, extension and policy, Agricultural Systems 156, 115-125. Journal web page * Ideas page