How misinformation and mismatched expectations reduce adoption of improved seeds

Miehe, Caroline; Nabwire, Leocardia; Sparrow, Robert; Spielman, David; and Van Campenhout, Bjorn. 2025. How misinformation and mismatched expectations reduce adoption of improved seeds. VoxDev article published online May 21, 2025. https://voxdev.org/topic/agriculture/how-misinformation-and-mismatched-expectations-reduce-adoption-improved-seeds

Often presented as game-changing solutions, agricultural technologies like improved seeds or fertilisers can lead farmers to adopt one at the expense of others, only to disadopt when the expected gains, based on overly optimistic assumptions about reduced need for complementary inputs, fail to materialise.