Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Page 4 Page 5 Page 6 Page 7 Page 8 Page 9 Page 10 Page 11 Page 12 Page 13 Page 14 Page 15 Page 16 Page 17 Page 18 Page 19 Page 20 Page 21 Page 22 Page 23 Page 24 Page 25 Page 26 Page 27 Page 28 Page 29 Page 30 Page 31 Page 32 Page 33 Page 34 Page 35 Page 36 Page 37 Page 38 Page 39 Page 40 Page 41 Page 42 Page 43 Page 44 Page 45 Page 46 Page 47 Page 48 Page 49 Page 50 Page 51 Page 52 Page 53 Page 54 Page 55 Page 56 Page 57 Page 58 Page 59 Page 60 Page 61 Page 62 Page 63 Page 64 Page 65 Page 66 Page 67 Page 68 Page 69 Page 70 Page 71 Page 72 Page 73 Page 74 Page 75 Page 7646 IREC Farmers' Newsletter No. 195 ­ – Rice R&D 2016 stakeholders including senior staff from SunRice, RGA and irrigation companies, private consultants, extension agents, public and private sector agronomists, and researchers. In this article the focus is on the findings from the grower interviews since these provide the greatest insights into the social factors influencing growers’ adoption practices. Three key themes emerged from the grower interviews which are outlined below. 1. Constraints to adoption of technology Growers viewed several factors as important in restricting their capacity to adopt new technologies (Table 1). Of most significance was the cost effectiveness (cost versus expected financial returns) of new technology. Growers also expressed concerns about the challenges in adopting precision agriculture technologies due to the lack of demonstrated and proven benefits, the lack of time to trial and interpret the information generated by the technology, problems with compatibility between the platforms of different technology/ machinery manufacturers, and fear over loss of flexibility and lock-in to a particular manufacturer’s platform. The age of rice growers was also identified as a potential challenge in technology adoption. Older growers were perceived as slow adopters but not necessarily less likely than younger growers to adopt new technology. 2. Strategies for adopting technology Despite the reported constraints and challenges, growers were generally interested in and amenable to adopting new technology. Growers use a range of strategies to reduce, or work around, the perceived risks — particularly lack of demonstrated benefit, cost vs return, time and cost involved in trialling new technology, and technological compatibility – associated with technology adoption. These strategies include informal learning about technology from other growers and particularly early adopters, adaptation of new technology to work with existing equipment, and the use of technology/ equipment owned by contractors or neighbours (Table 2). Table 1: Constraints to technology adoption Constraint Example from data Cost of technology versus I look at new technologies as is it going to make the job easier, expected returns is it going to make it more cost effective, those sort of things.  And will it return us a decent amount of money to warrant spending money on it in the long term. (Murray, Grower 23) Lack of demonstrated benefits  …at this stage there’s not many of our neighbours or people  that we work for that are using variable rate technology directly. [Grower’s neighbour] is one that is, but with his work it’s a little bit limited success…. And they’re not really seeing the benefits for the money that you’re outlaying. (MIA, Grower 13) Time involved to trial or We use all these technologies [but] we haven’t actually interpret information from got time to sit down and read the results. I think the new technology  technology is speeding up our lives. Consumption of your time and … knowing how to deal with it is a challenge in adopting new technologies. (Murray, Grower 19) Technology compatibility Retailers, a lot of them will tell you we’ll do this and do that and lock-in  and like we bought another tractor that had a GPS in it last year and it won’t talk to our boom spray but the system we’ve got will talk to our boom spray and this other one’s meant to be a new flash modern technology but it won’t talk to our boom spray, whereas our old one will. Just simple things like that [are frustrating]. (CIA, Grower 6) Age of the grower  I’m a slow adopter; I mean some of it’s to do with my age…. I think when you’re 25 … you have a much different view of risk and how you analyse things, and what you adopt. But I suppose I’m fortunate enough, or unfortunate enough to have been through the cycle a couple of times now, of ups and downs, and it changes your view of how you assess that [risk]. (Murray, Grower 4) Table 2: Adoption and adaptation strategies Strategies Example from data Learning from other growers  If I know someone who’s got a machine with something in it I’ll ring them and have a yarn to them and ask them whether they’ve had trouble with this or that and they’ll say yes or no. And then you ring the bloke up the road who’s got the same machine and he might tell you something different and then you can fit somewhere in between, that’s the main way I work. (MIA, Grower 21) Learning from early adopters  The main challenges [in adopting technology] are just making that initial decision I suppose. [I’m] fearful of going down the wrong path. And being an early adopter you’d have to wear that. [So] you just wait for the early adopters to make the mistakes. I’m happy doing that. (MIA, Grower 24) Adaptation of technology  …it doesn’t really matter whether it’s IT type technology, precision ag stuff, or whether it’s the hard physical stuff —, shift the dirt, move the water stuff — the same rules apply. You fiddle with it for a while, you bend it to suit yourself. (Murray, Grower 11) Use of contractors’ or As much as I’d love to have a lot of that stuff it’s not financially neighbours’ resources  practical for me to adopt a lot of it. We find that in a lot of regards there’s always a contractor or there’s someone that’s going to hire a bit of gear or there’s a neighbour that’s got it that you can actually get your hands on it to do the job. (MIA, Grower 18)