The objective of this study is to test the widely‐held belief that the effect of education has a positive impact on technology adoption. Using 2006 Agricultural Resource Management Survey "ARMS" data, we estimate a simultaneous equations model to integrate farmers’ labor allocation decision with adoption of GM crops and precision farming. We confirm that the marginal effect of education on technology adoption is significantly larger for large farms for both GM crops and precision farming and it is unexpectedly negative for GM crops at all levels of farm size. These results suggest that formal education can be a barrier to technology adoption, especially for small scale farmers who have higher tendency to work off‐farm.