Beschreibung:
<jats:sec><jats:title content-type="abstract-subheading">Purpose</jats:title><jats:p>The purpose of this paper is to investigate how farmers perceive and exploit business opportunities to foster entrepreneurship in developing country agriculture.</jats:p></jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title content-type="abstract-subheading">Design/methodology/approach</jats:title><jats:p>In total, 174 milk producers completed a face-to-face survey within a posttest- pretest research design. Partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) was used to test the hypotheses.</jats:p></jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title content-type="abstract-subheading">Findings</jats:title><jats:p>Results revealed that intentions, channelled through desirability, feasibility and optimism, become a strong predictor to recognise the opportunity to be entrepreneurial; however, the presence of a munificent environment and participation in apprenticeship and training programmes are the main and direct source of exploiting farming business opportunities.</jats:p></jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title content-type="abstract-subheading">Research limitations/implications</jats:title><jats:p>The major limitation of the study is that cross-sectional data collected only from milk producers in Pakistan, signifying a need to include other agricultural sectors across different developing countries for further contextualising the results.</jats:p></jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title content-type="abstract-subheading">Originality/value</jats:title><jats:p>Research on entrepreneurial behaviour among farmers is scant. This study emphasises how cognitive heuristics guide intentions influencing the process of opportunity formation, and a munificent environment and entrepreneurial skills trainings are necessary for starting dairy farming business with modern practices.</jats:p></jats:sec>