Behavioral Readiness for Climate‐Smart Agriculture Adoption Among Smallholder Farmers in Southwest Ethiopia

Understanding the behavioral mechanisms underlying farmers' readiness to adopt climate‐smart agriculture (CSA) is important for informing climate adaptation efforts. This study examines CSA adoption readiness among 384 smallholder farmers in Kaffa zone, Southwest Ethiopia, using covariance‐based structural equation modeling. The study extends the Theory of Planned Behavior by incorporating technology perceptions, previous CSA experience, risk aversion, and institutional support. The result shows attitude, subjective norms, perceived behavioral control (PBC), perceived ease of use, previous CSA adoption experience, and institutional support were positively associated with CSA adoption readiness, whereas perceived usefulness and risk aversion were not significant. Perceived ease of use showed the strongest association with adoption intention ( β = 0.377, p = 0.001). Institutional support was positively associated with PBC ( β = 0.243, p < 0.001) and future intention ( β = 0.112, p = 0.030), explaining 5.9% of variance in PBC and 41.4% of the variance in adoption readiness. PBC showed a significant indirect association between institutional support and future intention ( β = 0.058, p = 0.013; 95% bootstrap CI: 0.015–0.102), alongside a remaining direct association. The significant indirect association through perceived behavioral control suggests that farmers’ perceptions of their ability to implement CSA may represent an important pathway linking institutional support with adoption intentions. The findings highlight the relevance of integrating institutional support with efforts to strengthen farmers' perceived capability to implement CSA and to enhance behavioural readiness for future adoption.