Exploring apple growers’ switching behaviour towards high-density sustainable farming using the push-pull-mooring framework

Abstract

The paper investigates the behavioural processes underlying growers’ intentions and actual adoption of high-density (HD) apple production systems in the Indian Himalayan region through the Push-Pull-Mooring (PPM) framework. It exposes the interaction between psychosocial and structural forces that affect technology transition decisions in capital-intensive perennial horticulture, which provides information to speed up agricultural modernisation in mountain economies. In order to gather the required data, a structured questionnaire was created and given to a sample of 275 apple growers in Jammu and Kashmir, India. The research design used in the study was cross-sectional and utilized a two-stage purposive and judgmental sampling to collect data. Smart PLS was used to empirically test the proposed model and mediating relationships using the collected data, employing Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM). The analysis has discovered that push factors linked to conventional orchards (low yields, poor fruit quality, labour intensity, long gestation cycle, and risks posed by climate) have the most significant effects on the behavioural intention of growers to switch to non-traditional systems. The expected yield gains, premium prices, labour efficiency, early bearing, and policy incentives constitute pull factors that considerably increase the adoption intention and mooring factors that condition the switching process are expected to be influenced by the ability of the switching process to be conditioned by behavioural inertia, access to inputs, training, financial risk perceptions, and the expected yield gains. Push, pull and mooring forces are found to be mediated by behavioural intention, which is a good predictor of actual use behaviour. The findings provide context-specific insights for Himalayan apple-growing regions and the model accounts for 51% of behavioural intention variation and 23% of use behaviour variation, which demonstrates moderate explanatory relevance for behavioural intention and modest explanatory relevance for use behaviour within this study.

The authors' abstract, as published at the source. Discover Sustainability, 2026 · DOI ↗