Assessment of NSPRI Technological Innovations’ Adoption Among Users in Nigeria

The dearth of users’ feedback is the bane of innovation, improvement and popularization of NSPRI designed and developed postharvest technologies. Hence, this study sought to boost the improvement of NSPRI Technological innovations such as NSPRI Fish-Smoking-Kiln (NSK), Parabolic-Shaped Solar Dryer (PSSD), Iced Fish Box® (IFB), Hermetic Steel Drum (HSD) and Stackable-Ventilated Plastic Crate (SVPC) through feedback from the users. The study employed interview schedule to obtain primary data from 1049 beneficiaries of NSPRI disseminated technologies purposively selected from thirteen (13) out of the twenty-four (24) States where the technologies were distributed and promoted. Descriptive statistics (frequency count, percentages, and mean) and inferential statistics were used for data analysis. Results revealed that HSD has the highest (27.7%) number of users, while 3.27%, 21.26%, 24.12% and 23.64 of the respondents used SVPC, IFB®, PSSD, and NSK respectively. About 41.2% and 26% of users of the SVPC and IFB® reported that the quality of commodities during transit was maintained for an average of 13 and 24 hours, respectively. The utilization of all the technologies improved users’ income and increased their capacity to meet market demand. The majority of the users (VPC: 100%, IFB®:92.7%, NSK: 51.3%, PSSD: 74.9%, HSD: 86.9%) are willing to pay for the technology, albeit at varying amounts. Despite the relative advantages of the postharvest technologies as indicated by beneficiaries, several areas for improvement were highlighted for all the technologies except the IFB®. The NSK and IFB® had adoption rates of 56.45% and 50.22%, respectively while the PSSD, and HSD and SVPC had less than 50% adoption.