Media Shapes Farm Tech Adoption in Poor Nations

Researchers looked at English news stories about a farming innovation called Juncao from 2019 to 2025. They used a computer method called BERTopic to find main topics and a word list called NRC Emotion Lexicon to measure feelings. The sample covered 13 developing countries.

The analysis pulled out five big themes. One theme is government led rice projects and training for farmers. Another covers local farm growth, nature care and poverty reduction. A third ties the work to a big international investment plan. A fourth highlights visits by officials between provinces and governments. The last theme links the technology to United Nations goals through livestock work.

Emotion scores show mostly positive feelings. Trust and anticipation stand out the most. Trust appears together with stories about cross border cooperation, especially the big investment plan. Anticipation shows up when articles talk about higher yields and more money for growers.

Negative feelings point to existing problems like hunger, poverty and land damage rather than the technology itself. This framing paints the method as a fix for those problems. The pattern suggests that how news feels can influence whether people adopt the new farming way.