Grower decision-making factors in adoption of specialty cultivars: A case study of potatoes in the San Luis Valley

Abstract

Potatoes are the most consumed vegetable worldwide and play an important role in the U.S. economy. Growers make critical decisions each year in choosing which cultivar to grow, based on factors such as yield, resilience to the growing environment, and utility in the food industry. Current research supports the finding that less-common specialty cultivars (SCs) have benefits for human health. However, growers have been slow to adopt SCs into mainstream operations. Here, we identify major factors in the decision-making process that determine whether a population of growers in the San Luis Valley, Colorado, a major potato-growing region, adopt SC potatoes. We used a combination of ethnographic techniques and quantitative methods to examine drivers of adoption. The data demonstrate grower perceptions within potato farming and the complexity of interacting factors in decision-making. An integration of the Theory of Planned Behavior, Rational Expectation Hypothesis, and Diffusion of Innovation models identifies economic and social factors that influence grower decision-making. Growers that were more aware of specialty cultivar innovation and associated consumer demand were more open to SCs adoption. Other influencing factors include a grower's experience selling a SC in the previous year and access to diverse markets. Based on these data, we developed a new model to explain grower decision-making processes in adopting SCs. The model demonstrates that one current barrier to adoption is access to buyers, including warehouses, retailers, and households. Taken together, this research demonstrates how rational expectations stem from economic outcomes, knowledge, and experience in the potato industry. These results are important in helping to consider opportunities for growers to access new, higher value markets, while also improving consumer access to nutritious cultivars.

Fig 1. Diffusion of innovation model from Rogers (1962).

Fig 2. Theoretical framework for adoption of potato SCs.

Background factors were collected for analysis of adoption in potato to model behavioral belief (BB), normative belief (NB), and perceived control (PC). (a): Three constructs of the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) model, adapted from Ajzen [37]. (b) Adaptation of the models of Borges et al. (2016) and Wauters et al. (2010) shows the aggregative effect of behavioral belief, normative belief, and perceived control on attitude, subjective norm, and perceived behavioral control [50, 76].

Fig 3. Experimental design to collect and analyze qualitative and quantitative data.

The first step in the procedure was interviews, which we analyzed and used to generate the survey as the second step. Data from both the interview and the survey were merged for subsequent modeling.