This research aims to study the relationship between stakeholder motivational factors versus the success of technology transfer initiatives in encouraging sustainable agriculture through the theoretical lens of industrial psychology. With the increasingly complexed issues faced by farmers due to climate change as well as the global emphasis on sustainability and carbon emissions reduction, policymakers along with agricultural extension services are working with farmers to encourage adoption of sustainable practices. However, there are limited successes as smallholder farmers are trapped in basic human physiological and safety needs (Figure 1).

This research argues that farmer’s other psychological needs including self-actualisation should be incorporated in achieving sustainable agriculture transformation and attempts to answer the following research question: How can farmers’ psychological needs be integrated with the processes of extension institutions encouraging adoption of sustainable technologies and operations?

Semi-structured interviews will be done with stakeholders in extension programs encouraging sustainable operations among rice farmers in Thailand. A process mapping of farmers’ operations, Force Field Analysis (Figure 2), as well as Kotter’s 8-Step Change Model (Figure 3) will be performed to understand the motivations under each farmer’s and extension service’s process stage. Expected findings include the typologies of farmer psychological needs for the adoption of agricultural innovations as well as new processes and performance indicators of extension institutions that address the psychological needs of farmers.

This research extends the industrial psychology literature into the area of process improvement within the context of sustainable food production. Within the broader literature of National/Agricultural Innovation Systems, while there are abundant research on operational improvement as well as on extension services, literature on and practical application of psychology in agriculture extension is still relatively scarce.