Emerging Technologies in Agriculture: Adoption Barriers & Trade-offs: 16 MCQs with answers

C · High upfront cost and financial risk if it fails.

Kofi knows about the technology; what stops him is the GHS 8,000 cost and the risk of losing money if it underperforms in his context.

C · GHS 1,000

GHS 10,000 divided among 10 farmers is GHS 1,000 each. Sharing lowers the individual financial burden.

B · Community fear of eating genetically modified rice.

Community distrust of GM food is a social/cultural barrier. The others are financial, infrastructure, and literacy barriers respectively.

A · Excessive government regulation of drones

The topic covers financial, social trust, infrastructure, and language/literacy barriers — not government regulation of drones.

A · True

Sharing equipment through a farmer cooperative reduces the individual financial burden, making expensive technology affordable for smallholder farmers.

C · Higher income versus maintaining community trust.

The trade-off is between the agronomic and income gains of the GM variety and the risk of losing community trust.

C · Early containment stopped the disease spreading widely.

Plant diseases spread from infected to healthy plants. Early detection lets farmers contain the outbreak before it grows.

B · The app is only in English and Kwesi's English is limited.

Language and literacy barriers can block adoption even when infrastructure is available, because the app operates only in English.

B · It makes each farmer's individual share affordable.

The cooperative does not lower the absolute price; it spreads the cost so each farmer's share is affordable.

C · Adoption also depends on cost, risk, trust, infrastructure, and literacy.

This is the common mistake of assuming proven technology is automatically adopted. Non-agronomic barriers matter just as much.

B · Kwesi's app needs internet that is unreliable in his village.

Unreliable internet is an infrastructure barrier. The others are financial or social barriers.

A · Non-agronomic barriers like cost, trust, or literacy block adoption.

Adoption depends on cost, risk, trust, infrastructure, and literacy as much as on agronomic performance.

A · Join the cooperative for lower cost and multiple technologies.

The cooperative lowers cost, spreads risk, and gives access to multiple technologies — the best fit for a smallholder with limited capital.

C · Cost barrier — cooperatives or shared ownership.

Cost barriers call for cooperatives or shared ownership. Trust calls for demonstration; literacy calls for local-language interfaces.

B · Both A and R are true, and R correctly explains A.

Targeted action on the affected area is exactly why blanket chemical treatment becomes unnecessary — R explains A.

C · Cooperatives target the cost barrier while other barriers may remain.

Cooperatives mainly address cost and risk; training and connectivity barriers may still need separate solutions.