Exploring Farmers‘ Knowledge, Attitude and Adoption of Smart Agriculture Technology in Taiwan

Climate change and food security are the most relevant issues to be considered in sustainable agricultural development. The FAOs initiative of climate-smart agriculture has attracted international attention. Since then, the smart agriculture (SA) has been recognized as the most influential trends in contributing to agricultural development. Therefore, encouraging farmers to adopt digital technologies and mobile devices into farming practices becomes a policy priority worldwide. However, there is limited literature available on psychologic factors that drive farmers intentions to adopt SA technologies. The purpose of this study is to investigate how farmers knowledge and attitude toward SA affects their adoption of smart technologies in Taiwan. A total of 321 farmers participated in the projects survey in 2017 and 2018, from which the data was used to perform an OLS regression model of SA adoption. This study contributes to a preliminary understanding of relationship between innovation and adoption of SA technologies in a small-scale farming economic context. The findings suggest that the policy makers and RD institutes need to concentrate on improving market access for well-known and high important SA technologies.