Impact of Earned and Unearned Off-Farm Income on Adoption of New Technologies

Sustainable agriculture requires farmers’ adoption of new technologies and practices that sustain the environmental quality, while providing the agricultural output. Off-farm income has been analyzed in technology adoption studies, due to its increasing share in agricultural household income. The objective of current study is to analyze the impact of earned and unearned off-farm income of both the farm operator and spouse on adoption of new technologies. The results of the current study shows that earned off-farm income positively impact adoption of capital intensive and risk technologies. However, unearned off-farm income negatively impacts adoption of new technologies.