AGRICULTURAL INNOVATIONmedia, or it may pass through social networks.
From an individual’s point of view, the process of
innovation is usually conceived to start with initial
awareness of the innovation and how it functions.
It ends with adoption or nonadoption. In between
these end points is an interactive, iterative process
of attitude formation, decision making, and ac-
tion. The cumulative frequency of adopters over
time describes an S-shaped (logistic) curve. The
frequency distribution over time is often bellshaped
and approximately normal.
Individual innovativeness has been character-
ized in five ideal-type adopter categories (Rogers
1983). The first 2 to 3 percent to adopt an innova-
tion, the ‘‘innovators,’’ are characterized as ven-
turesome. The next 10 to 15 percent, the ‘‘early
adopters,’’ are characterized as responsible, solid,
local opinion leaders. The next 30 to 35 percent
are the ‘‘early majority,’’ who are seen as being
deliberate. They are followed by the ‘‘late majori-
ty’’ (30 to 35 percent), who are cautious and
skeptical, and innovate under social and economic
pressures. Finally, there are the ‘‘laggards,’’ who
comprise the bottom 15 percent. They are charac-
terized as ‘‘traditional,’’ although they are often
simply in a precarious economic position. Earlier
adopters are likely to have higher social status and
better education, and to be upwardly mobile. They
tend to have larger farms, more favorable attitudes
toward modern business practices (e.g., credit),
and more specialized operations. Earlier adopters
are also argued to have greater empathy, rationali-
ty, and ability to deal with abstractions. They are
less fatalistic and dogmatic, and have both positive
attitudes toward change and science, and higher
achievement motivation and aspirations. Early
adopters report more social participation and net-
work connections, particularly to change agents,
and greater exposure to both mass media and
interpersonal communication networks.
Although Rogers (1983) provides dozens of
such generalizations about the characteristics of
early and late adopters, he admits that the evi-
dence on many of these propositions is somewhat
mixed (Downs and Mohr 1976). Even the fre-
quently researched proposition that those with
higher social status and greater resources are likely
to innovate earlier and more often has garnered
far less than unanimous support (Cancian 1967,
1979; Gartrell 1977). Cancian argues that this is a
result of ‘‘upper middle-class conservatism,’’ but
subsequent meta-analysis has clearly demonstrat-
ed that the relationship between status and innova-
tion is indeed linear (Gartrell and Gartrell 1985;
Lewis et al. 1989). If anything, those with very high
status or resources show a marked tendency to
turn their awareness of innovations into trial at a
very high rate (Gartrell and Gartrell 1979).Ryan and Gross (1942) provide a classic exam-
ple of diffusion research. Hybrid corn seed, devel-
oped by Iowa State and other land-grant university
researchers, increased yields 20 percent over those
of open-pollinated varieties. Hybrid corn also was
more drought-resistant and was better suited to
mechanical harvesting. Agricultural extension
agents and seed company salesmen promoted it
heavily. Its drawback was that it lost its hybrid vigor
after only one generation, so farmers could not
save the seed from the best-looking plants. (Of
course, this was not at all a drawback to the seed
companies!)Based on a retrospective survey of 259 farmers
in two small communities, Ryan and Gross found
that 10 percent had adopted hybrid corn after five
years (by 1933). Between 1933 and 1936 an addi-
tional 30 percent adopted, and by the time of the
study (1941) only two farmers did not use the
hybrid. Early adopters were more cosmopolitan,
and had higher social and economic status. The
average respondent took nine years to go from
first knowledge to adoption, and interpersonal
networks and modeling were judged to be critical
to adoption. In other cases diffusion time has been
much shorter. Beginning in 1944, the average
diffusion time for a weed spray (also in Iowa) was
between 1.7 years for innovators and 3.1 years for
laggards (Rogers 1983, p. 204). Having adopted
many innovations, farmers are likely to adopt
others more quickly.Adoption-diffusion research in rural sociolo-
gy has dominated all research traditions studying
innovation. Rural sociology produced 791 (26 per-
cent) of 3,085 studies up to 1981 (Rogers 1983, p.
52). Most of this research relied upon correlational
analysis of survey data based on farmers’ recall of
past behaviors. This kind of study reached its peak
in the mid 1960s. By the mid 1970s the farm crisis
in the United States and the global depression
spurred rural sociologists to begin to reevaluate
this tradition. By the 1980s global export markets
had shrunk, farm commodity prices had fallen, net