Abstract
Agricultural information is transferred through social interactions; therefore, ties to agricultural informants and network structures within farmers’ local neighborhoods determine their information-gathering abilities. This paper uses a spatial autoregressive model that takes account of spatial autocorrelation to examine such network connections, including friendship networks and advice networks, upon farmers’ knowledge-gathering abilities during formal agricultural training. We found that peer advice networks are important to support knowledge-gathering activities, while friendship networks are not. Further examination of network structures confirms that farmers who occupy a central position in their local neighborhood networks are found to perform better in learning outcomes to some extent, indicating that local network position is positively related to problem-solving ability in an unknown environment outside their locale.
Highlights
Access to information pertaining to agricultural knowledge is essential to develop farmers’ abilities in maintaining and increasing farm productivity
We investigate farmers’ positions in their local neighborhood, how central their position is compared to others who belong to the same group, and how this affects learning outcomes
4.1 Describing social networks This paper addresses the effects of social networks on learning performance during agricultural training, as discussed in the previous section
Summary
Access to information pertaining to agricultural knowledge is essential to develop farmers’ abilities in maintaining and increasing farm productivity. We found that ties to peer advice networks correspond to better learning outcomes, and the centrality of an individual’s position in a farming community strongly relates to their knowledge-gathering abilities to some extent. Farmers occupying central positions within their community may be more familiar with facilitating problem-solving activities as they are used to conducting effective coordination of actors and resources in their local network, resulting in better learning outcomes to some extent. Actors who have more connections and ties to other individuals may hold advantageous positions as these ties can serve as alternative ways to fulfill their needs, making them less dependent on other individuals Because they have many ties, they may have access to and be able to call on more of the resources of the network, resulting in better possible information acquired during agricultural training.
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