Predicting Adoption Behavior of Farmers Regarding On-Farm Sustainable Water Resources Management (SWRM): Comparison of Models

Increasing water use sustainability through promotion of on-farm sustainable water resources management (SWRM), in order to increase the quantity and quality of production has been the aim of the Ministry of Agriculture-Jihad of Iran in the past decade. Considerable investment and effort have been dedicated to this intent. Therefore, investigation of these efforts and the development of models to predict the adoption behavior of farmers are of considerable importance. A survey was conducted in Ahwaz township of Khuzestan provinces of Iran. A stratified random sample of 190 farmers were interviewed, 62 adopters and 128 non-adopters. The findings indicated that the discriminant model developed based on the multiplicity model is a better predictor of farmers' adoption behavior than the diffusion model, Technology Acceptance Model (TAM), Marcus' model, and farm structure model. The multiplicity model with the highest accuracy can be applied to classify the adoption behavior of farmers regarding on-farm SWRM.