Psychological Readiness, Innovation Management, and the Adoption of Sustainable Agriculture: An Extended Theory of Planned Behaviour Model of Food Security

This study examines the psychological and managerial factors that influence the adoption of sustainable agricultural practices (SA) and household food security (FS) in climate-vulnerable regions of Bangladesh. Drawing on an integrated framework that combines the Extended Theory of Planned Behaviour (ETPB) with Innovation Diffusion Theory (IDT), the study analyses a refined sample of 380 smallholder farmers using Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM). Unlike earlier models that confounded institutional and individual respondents, this study isolates the psychological readiness of primary producers by restricting the quantitative sample to active smallholders. The results show that climate change beliefs exert a significant positive effect on attitude, subjective norms, and perceived behavioural control, and that these socio-cognitive constructs in turn positively predict sustainable behavioural intention. Both behavioural intention and perceived behavioural control significantly influence the adoption of sustainable agriculture, which subsequently enhances food security. Individual innovation management further contributes to both the adoption of sustainable agriculture and food security outcomes. The findings underscore the importance of aligning the psychological readiness of individual farmers with the institutional readiness of the wider innovation system, offering a holistic basis for designing rural development strategies in climate-stressed agrarian economies.