Understanding Why Farmers Adopt or Do Not Adopt Precision Farming Technology or Individual Precision Agriculture Technology Components

Cotton farmers have given several reasons on why they adopt or do not adopt precision agriculture or component precision farming technologies.  In the past, this issue had been analyzed separately (adoption separate from nonadoption).  Our objective is to identify the reasons on why farmers adopt or do not adopt precision farming technologies (namely, yield monitoring, map making, variable rate input application, and precision soil testing) using a unified approach. The first step in the analysis is to identify an appropriate method to bundle similar component technologies. We consider adoption or nonadoption of precision farming technology as the first level of choice problem. At the second level, we utilize the reasons why farmers do not adopt/stop precision farming technology or individual technology used within the precision cotton farming. We assess the factors affecting these choice decisions.  Results indicated that adoption is affected by farm size, income level of farmers and contact with extension personnel.