Analysis of Crop Production Choices among Agro-Pastoral Households in Beletweyne, Somalia

Crop choice is the first and most consequential decision an agro-pastoral household makes each season, yet it is usually explained by agronomic suitability or input availability. This article applies Rogers’ Diffusion of Innovations Theory to explain why households in Beletweyne District, Somalia, adopt or reject crop options promoted through aid and extension. We operationalise the theory’s five perceived attributes of innovations (relative advantage, compatibility, complexity, trialability and observability), its five-stage innovation-decision process, communication channels and adopter categories, and combine them in a nine-step model comprising a stage funnel, binary and multinomial logit estimation, adopter-category classification and a Bass diffusion curve. The design builds on a mixed-methods survey of 96 households in three villages, supplemented by 10 key-informant interviews and four focus-group discussions. Descriptive signals from the survey show abundant financial aid (mean 4.98 of 5) but thin extension (mean 2.85), a configuration the theory predicts will stall adoption at the knowledge and persuasion stages. Analysis shows how the outputs are read. The article offers a theory-to-estimation protocol for crop-choice research in fragile settings.