Factors Driving Adoption of Climatic Risk Mitigating Technologies with Special Reference to Goat Farming in India: Evidence from Meta-Analysis

An attempt to comprehend the status of factors driving adoption of technologies with specific reference to goat farming in the changing climatic scenario was studied through narrative literature review and meta-analysis. Review of past studies suggests that the extension system suffers with limitations of financial and man-power resources. Additionally, farmers have minimal access to the scientific advancement in the field of livestock production. Further, the meta-analysis revealed that the farmers had knowledge of 47 % on technologies that has potential to mitigate the effects of climate change on goats. The health, feeding, breeding and housing practices had an adoption level of 31 %, 40 %, 58 % and 70 % respectively. While the extent of adoption of specific practices such as ectoparasitic control, deworming and vaccination ranged from 24 % to 48 %. The high climatic risk prone areas had low overall adoption rate on comparing to low risk prone areas even though the knowledge on goat farming practices/technologies were vice versa. This study identified that knowledge of farmers, access to extension services and individuals’ economic motivation had larger effect on adoption with a population effect size of 0.69, 0.52 and 0.52, respectively. The climate risk proneness moderate the relationship of access to extension services and education with adoption. Thus, meta-analysis suggests that targeting farmers with better education and having contacts with extension agents with climate risk mitigating technologies may provide earlier benefits. Added the livestock extension system plays a significant role in technology transfer activities in goat farming, which needs to adapt with investments, human resources, research on climate resilient technology transfer activities and capacity building programs. Such an approach might help to deliver the technical know-how on climate resilient technologies and skills to farming community to mitigate the negative effects of climate change.