Agricultural Information Delivery Research Articles

Gabungan Kelompok Tani (GAPOKTAN) Memiliki Peran Dalam Memajukan Ekonomi Masyarakat

The Association of Farmers Groups (Gapoktan) is an organization consisting of farmer groups that have the same goal. The purpose of this research is to know the Gapoktan program in advancing the community's economy, to find out the Gapoktan steps in advancing the community's economy, to find out the results of Gapoktan activities in advancing the community's economy. This study uses qualitative methods and descriptive. There are five research results from the programs implemented by Gapoktan Anugerah in advancing the community's economy, namely socialization and delivery of agricultural information, holding partnership programs, providing agricultural needs, collective marketing of products, and conducting training programs. There are three steps taken by Anugerah Gapoktan, namely awareness, development and empowerment. The results obtained from these activities, Gapoktan Anugerah aims to achieve changes for the better for farmers around Pangalengan both for members and the surrounding community.

Harnessing the use of alternative media for South Africa’s agricultural extension service delivery in the face of the covid-19 global pandemic

Agricultural extension service delivery remains pivotal in disseminating contemporary and innovative agricultural information, and the training and capacity building of farmers; all of which are critical to increased farmer productivity. There are several agricultural extension methods used by extension field officers to engage their target farmers; some of the contact methods used, like the individual and group methods amongst others, necessitates close interactions between both parties. As such, physical contact between persons cannot be avoided. In the current spate of COVID-19 threats to global health, there is a possible risk of human-to-human transmission of the disease. Some temporary measures like social distancing and the ban of gatherings are currently utilised by many countries to mitigate the rapid spread of the virus. The findings of several research reports showed that these restrictions negatively impacted agricultural extension service deliveries. This paper, therefore, reviewed alternative media delivery mechanisms as a probable palliative measure in sustaining the continuous delivery of agricultural information to farmers. The paper recommends intensifying the use of the electronic extension (E-extension) system. The mobile and computer/web-based platforms should be significantly harnessed (where applicable), while concurrently promoting the intense use of print media, radio, television, agricultural documentaries and instructional videos.

Information Requirements for Farmers and Search Behavior: A Case Study in Manda Upazila, Naogaon

In recent scenarios, information is badly necessary for daily life. Information is essential in every part of the daily job. Information can be obtained or retrieved from a variety of places. This article focuses on the information needs of farmer groups in rural areas. This research paper fulfills the basic required information of rural farmers. This study was conducted using the questionnaire approach, and it revealed that practically all farmers are aware of agricultural facts, as this paper demonstrates. This paper also demonstrates that a greater number of sources use to inform the farmers mainly human assistance. But there have some limitations to reaching information, general to all search groups, were lacking authenticity and timeliness. The findings show that tailoring agricultural information delivery to farmers' diverse information search patterns is an important consideration for extension programs.

Hybrid Agricultural Information Delivery System as a Means to Improve Sustainability of Agriculture: Experimental Evidence from India

Extant research and policy on agriculture tend to treat financial sustainability and ecological sustainability of agricultural operations as mutually exclusive goals. We show that sharing the current stock of agricultural research with farmers through an innovative information delivery method can help in pursuing these two goals simultaneously. We used a mix of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) and agent-based information delivery methods to provide information about all aspects of crop production with a focus on nutrient management and plant protection to paddy (rice) and cotton farmers in a field experiment setup. The method of information delivery enabled us to provide customized and detailed information. Our study finds that two years of intervention led to an increase in paddy yields by 18 percent and cotton yields by 85 percent. The enhanced yields were achieved along with reduction in the use of inorganic fertilizers and crop protection chemicals. At end of two years, intervention led to optimal, balanced usage of inorganic fertilizers by farmers and an overall reduction in the quantity of fertilizers used. Intervention also led to reduction in expenses related to crop protection chemicals owing to their proper usage. Yield enhancement and cost reduction contributed to an increase in net returns by 78 percent and 221 percent for paddy and cotton crops, respectively. Along with improving the financial viability of farming, proper use of chemicals adds to the ecological sustainability of agriculture. The results of this study are important because they show that improved delivery of agricultural information can be used to attain goals beyond yield enhancement and that significant results can be achieved in a relatively short span of time. The results also have important implications for the management of agricultural information delivery initiatives and the continuity of such initiatives.

Utilization and Effectiveness of ICT as Agricultural Information Delivery System in Thakurgao, Bangladesh

The study was conducted in Thakurgaon sadar Upazila to determine farmers’ perception of the extent and factors of ICTs effectiveness in transferring farming information. A total of 250 people who were already been taken services from different ICT center was selected as sample respondents following a random sampling technique. Primary data were collected using a predesigned interview schedule. Findings revealed that 57.2% of the respondents contacted with Union Digital Center while 38.8% contacted with government own ICT center AICC (Agricultural Information and Communication Center) for their farming-related information. Majority (79.2%) of the respondents opined that they have utilized ICTs moderately to highly whereas three-fourth of the respondents found ICTs moderately to extremely effective in transferring farming technology. Uninterrupted electricity supply, high speed of internet, providing regular training on ICTs, skilled staff and technicians for ICTs and provision for repairing ICT tools are being perceived as significant factors of ICTs effectiveness. Near future, ICT may offer a great opportunity to facilitate the flow of information and technology service delivery to the rural people of Bangladesh.

Channels used to deliver agricultural information and knowledge to smallholder farmers

This study examined the effectiveness of the channels used to deliver agricultural information and knowledge to smallholder farmers in Tanzania. A descriptive cross-sectional design alongside quantitative and qualitative approaches was employed to collect data from 341 respondents. While the data collected through the questionnaire was analysed by using Statistical Product and Service Solutions (SPSS) version 21, the data collected through the interview was analysed by using thematic analysis. The findings suggest that delivery of and access to timely and relevant agricultural information and knowledge, appropriately packaged, is one of the critical problems undermining smallholder farmers’ efforts to increase their production. As a result, most smallholder farmers mainly depend on informal channels. Besides informal channels, farmer groups and demonstration plots are becoming popular channels to deliver and access agricultural information and knowledge. To make a difference in agricultural production, deliberate efforts should be made to enhance the delivery of agricultural information and knowledge.

Addressing crisis in Indian agriculture through agricultural information delivery

Agricultural information delivery is the process of delivering research-based information to farmers. Currently, there is low access to agricultural information among Indian farmers, which has resulted in gaps in crop production practices. We present a review of literature about antecedents of agricultural information delivery in India, prominent methods of delivering agricultural information, current access to agricultural information, and issues in Indian agriculture due to low access to agricultural information. The review of literature is followed by an edited transcript from a panel discussion on the topic. The article highlights the complexity involved in delivering information to farmers and some recent developments in the field.

Factors affecting digital divide in ict-led agricultural information delivery: A comparative analysis

The Information Communication Technologies (ICT) can be efficient tools to supplement public extension system in delivering timely, relevant, specific information at low cost but, past attempts of ICT led delivery mechanisms were very selectively successful and only a few farmers got advantage out of them. The present study aimed at finding out the reasons those hindered the adoption of ICT tools and technologies as agricultural information delivering media. The gap which is created due to differences in digital opportunities like access to ICT tools, digital literacy and the benefit gained by using those can be termed as digital divide. The study was conducted in Nashik (teledensity=98.98) and Varanasi (teledensity=68.60) districts of Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh, respectively so that the indicators of digital divide among digitally well performing and not well performing district could be found out from which a projection could be made for other places with similar digital climate. From analysis, it was found out that the factors like gender (t=-2.766**), social participation (t=0.840**), awareness (t=4.041**), affordability (t=3.512**) and economic motivation (t=2.042*) were significant for farmers of Nashik districts where income (t=2.003*), affordability (t= 4.142**) and age (t=2.533**) were significant for farmers of Varanasi district. The study can throw some light on regional, farm and micro level characteristics affecting the digital divide so that it may be helpful for researchers, policy makers and academicians to design suitable policies fitting to digital climate of a particular location.

Understanding Cotton Growers’ Information Needs from Rural Bahawalpur

This study investigated the information needs of cotton growers residing in two villages in the district of Bahawalpur. Face-to-face interviews were conducted by visiting farms or homes using a semi-structured interview schedule. Data were analyzed by applying descriptive statistics. The results indicated that cotton growers required information, in general, in the areas of soil management and plot preparation, cotton seeds, crop care, and pre- and post- harvesting activities. Moreover, these farmers relied very much upon informal networks (progressive farmers, sales agents, and pesticides dealers) while looking for the needed information. Lack of timely access, illiteracy, infrequent visits of extension staff, and language barrier were the major problems that these farmers faced while getting needed information. The results of this research indicated the need for an integrated agricultural information delivery system for farmers. This research has made a significant contribution in cotton growers' information behavior research.

English

As a result of inability of public extension services to be responsive to the needs of farmers, a new paradigm is emerging. This study was designed to assess farmers’ willingness to pay for extension services and to identify factors influencing the willingness to pay for agricultural information delivery services among the farmers. To achieve the objectives of the study, four PAs were included in the study purposively. A total of 140 households were selected randomly using probability proportional to size technique and interviewed using interview schedules. The proportion of the respondents was increased to 64.2% when the improvement in the quality of the services was stated. Analysis of determinants of the willingness to pay from logit model showed a significant positive relationship between willingness to pay (WTP) and household income, and farm size. Other household characteristics such as age of household head, media exposure, and family size were found to be negative but significantly related to WTP. Key words: Willingness to pay, agricultural extension, commercialization, public service.

Delivery of agricultural drought information via web services

Data, information, knowledge, and wisdom are four basic steps of human perception process of objects. In order to better understand agricultural drought and make proper decisions, it is necessary to extract drought information out of related data (e.g., remotely sensed data) and discover knowledge from the extracted information. This paper explores advantages of Web services in providing on-demand agricultural drought analysis and facilitating the perception process in agricultural drought management. Four Web services, drawROI, getVCIStats, getDroughtPercentageByStates, and getDroughtTimeSeries, are presented in details in this paper. These Web services demonstrate improved support to drought analysis and decision-making for the general public and illustrate the potential of Web services in automating geospatial knowledge discovery and dissemination in the Big Data era.

Effect of Targeted Agricultural Information Delivery Approach on Farmers’ Access to Agricultural Information in Nigeria

Access to information by rural farmers in Nigeria is inefficient due to a variety of factors which include insufficient extension staff and dearth of information in the right format. In order to ensure delivery of timely and relevant information to rural farmers, Information Resource Centers (IRCs) were established in Adopted Villages across the country by the National Agricultural Extension and Research Liaison Services (NAERLS), an agricultural extension research institute based in Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria. Farmers’ access to information was enhanced through this approach and it was cost effective as both NAERLS and the farmers contributed to running the IRCs.

Enhancing Agricultural Geospatial Data Dissemination and Applications Using Geospatial Web Services

There are many important publicly available agricultural geospatial data products for the agriculture-related research, applications, and educational outreach programs. The traditional data distribution method cannot fully meet users' on-demand geospatial data needs. This paper presents interoperable, standard-compliant Web services developed for geospatial data access, query, retrieval, statistics, mapping, and comparison. Those standard geospatial Web services can be integrated in scientific workflows to accomplish specific tasks or consumed over the Web to create value-added new geospatial application by users. In addition, this paper demonstrates, via real world use cases, applications of those services and potential impacts on facilitating geospatial Cropland Data Layer (CDL) retrieval, analysis, visualization, dissemination and integration in agricultural industry, government, research, and educational communities. This paper also shows that the geospatial Web service approach helps improve the reusability, interoperability, dissemination, and utilization of agricultural geospatial data. It allows for integrating multiple online applications and different geospatial data sources, and enables automated retrieving and delivery of agricultural geospatial information for decision-making support.

Bridging Gender Gaps in Provision of Agricultural Extension Service Using ICT

This article was designed to present the assessment of the effectiveness of radio - based, impact driven smallholder farmer extension service system provided by FVR to enhance accessibility of extension services to women and men in the project areas of Tanzania. Specifically, this paper assessed women and men farmers' access to ICT and factors influencing the utilization of ICT to deliver agricultural information and knowledge. The paper used data from impact assessment survey of the project conducted between April 2012 and June 2012. These data were complemented by focus group discussion involving members of gender advisory panel that had been established in the selected project sites. Quantitative data were analyzed to yield frequencies and percentages. Qualitative data were analyzed by content analysis. Even though ownership of mobile phones and radio was higher among women in all study areas both men and women farmers' had almost the same percentage in accessibility to agricultural extension information. The factors that affected women and men farmers to get quality agricultural information via these ICT tools were namely: poor radio signal reception, power outrage and poor timing of radio programs among others. This is important evidence that careful use of ICT can reduce gender imbalance in agricultural extension services and information delivery.

Constraints on Farmers Access to Agricultural Information Delivery: A Survey of Rural Farmers in Yobe state, Nigeria

This study examines the constraints on farmers' access to Agricultural information delivery: a Survey of rural farmers in Yobe state, Nigeria. The socio-economic characteristics of farmers were described, major sources of information to farmers were determined and various constraints faced by farmers on information delivery in the study area. In order to examine the constraints of farmers on their access to agricultural information delivery in Yobe state, all the three senatorial zones of the State were selected; taking one Local Government Area from each zone. Data were collected using well structured questionnaire and analysed through the use of descriptive statistics'. From the findings of the research, out of the 160 respondents 51% were male while 49 % were female with ages ranging from 20 to 65 with an average of 40 years. While 97% of the respondents were married, majority (80%) having household size of less than 10 members, whereas, 68% had formal education. Majority of the respondents has spent 4-6 years as members of cooperative societies. While (63%) of the respondents had between 10 and 20 years of experience on farming and 56% had no access to credit facilities. The result further showed that rural farmers in the study area obtained their sources of information through; television, radio, extension workers and ward heads. The results on sources of information to farmers have clearly indicated that extension agents had the highest percentage with 62 % over others. It was further revealed that, irrelevant information; delay on information delivery, extension workers' personalities, and lack of feedback mechanism were identified as constraints facing farmers in the study area. It thus, recommended that, rural farmers in the study area need to make use of electronic media as their major sources of information and government should provide relevant infrastructure available particularly; sources of power to enhance the usage of the media recommended. The extension agents in the study area should be more committed to their duties, more approachable and also improves their feedback mechanism promptly. More so, farmers should also be encouraged in the formation of co-operative groups so as to pull their resources together to improve their financial capability vis-a-vis improve their innovative skills in the course of group interaction

English

      The study attempts to investigate the level of awareness, access and relevance of information and communication technology (ICT) tools among cassava farmers in Osun State, Nigeria. Data were gathered through a survey interview scheduled on a total of 130 cassava farmers. The data were analyzed using frequency, mean, standard deviation, Spearman rho correlation and independent sampled t-test. The result revealed that, the mean age of the respondents was 45.3 years and mean years of farming experience of 17.7 years. Radio, television, video recorder, audio cassette, mobile phone (GSM), computer and camera were categorized into high level of awareness and access. These ICT tools were also rated as highly relevant to cassava production activities in the area of cassava stem selection, land selection, land preparation, time of planting of cassava stem; and marketing of cassava produce. Based on the result of independent sampled t-test, there were significant differences in the mean scores of awareness and access to radio, television, computer, video and camera. These ICT tools were highly relevant to cassava production in the study area. Spearman Rho correlation analysis revealed that significant relationship exist between age (r = -0.434, p ≤ 0.05), cosmopoliteness (r = 0.276), p ≤ 0.05); Sex (r = -0.76, p ≤ 0.05), years of education (r = 0.328; ≤ 0.05) and accessibility to ICT. Sequel to the findings of the study, it was recommended that, the extension institutions in Nigeria should concentrate their effort on agricultural information delivery through these ICT facilities accessible to cassava farmers in order to improved cassava production in the study area.    Key words: Information and communication technology, cassava farmers, extension delivery, Nigeria.

Examining the effect of grower demographic and personal characteristics on willingness to pay amounts per information delivery modes in Rwanda

Growers’ demographical and personal characteristics in regards to willingness to pay (WTP) per information delivery mode may have strong influence on the success and viability of privatized extension services. The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of growers’ demographic and personal characteristics on their WTP amounts per information delivery mode in the Abahuzamugambi Coffee Growers Cooperative in Butare, Rwanda. Using a traditional questionnaire, we employed a purposeful sampling technique and 306 farmers participated in the study. Through comparative analysis, statistically significant differences were discovered in farmers’ WTP amounts per agricultural information delivery modes based on gender, years of service, and total non-farm expenses. Additional research should be conducted to understand better why these differences exist. Key words: Willingness to pay, delivery modes, extension, Rwanda.

Comparative assessment of pest management practices in potato production at Farmer Field Schools

Farmer field schools (FFS) and other participatory approaches are useful methods for rapid delivery of agricultural technologies, knowledge, and information in resource-constrained agro-ecosystems. Cultivar selection, weekly fungicide applications and integrated disease management (IDM) based on a disease monitoring strategy were evaluated at FFS for late blight control. Farmers’ knowledge and perceptions of pest management and agronomic practices were also assessed for both FFS participants and non-participants from 1999–2002. Late blight development and tuber yield varied among field schools, but cultivars had significant effects on late blight severity and yield over a range of disease management options relative to the untreated check. FFS participants and non-participants used diverse sources of pest management information, but differed significantly (P < 0.05) in their use of management methods and practices. Cultivar resistance and fungicides were ranked as major components of pest control by 18%–85% and 7%–30% of FFS participants and non-participants, respectively. Differences in knowledge of cropping practices and pest biology, causal agents, disease symptoms, factors favoring disease development and cultural management of insects and storage pests were recorded. Participatory field experiments, access to resistant cultivars, disease management and use of various agronomic practices learnt at FFS can greatly improve pest control and potato production.

Coorientation: A Communication Approach For Examining Effective Agricultural Information Delivery

Communication is indispensable in the delivery of agricultural information. The co-orientation approach to disseminating effective agricultural information is examined in this paper. It was noted that co-orientation model provides a framework that clearly illustrates the central role of message interpretation and reciprocal perceptions between the parties in a communication process. The model is explicit in identifying differences in values, beliefs and perceptions result in different interpretation of events and outcomes of actions. Co-orientation model addresses the most important issue of communication-understanding. Thus, the co-orientation model can greatly improve agricultural information delivery if properly applied. It was therefore concluded that co-orientation model is an excellent vehicle for strengthening the communication between participants in communication process. Keywords: co-orientation, communication approach, agricultural information deliveryGlobal Approaches to Extension Practice Vol. 3 (1) 2007: pp. 42-48

An assessment of use of radio in agricultural information dissemination: a case study of radio Benue in Nigeria

This study investigated the use of radio as a medium of agricultural information delivery to farmers in Benue State, Nigeria. The objective was to determine the impact of radio agricultural programmes on the target audience (farmers). The data were collected from a sample of one hundred respondents selected through a simple random sampling technique. The data were analyzed with descriptive statistics viz frequency distribution and percentage. The findings of the study showed that 66% of the respondents listened to agricultural programmes aired on Radio Benue and 42% of the listeners indicated that the programmes were relevant to their agricultural information needs. Majority of the respondents admitted that they gained some new knowledge through listening to the programmes. Non-possession of radio set and unsuitable time of programme presentation were indicated constraints to listener- ship of the programmes. The programmes, to a large extent, had the desired impact on the listeners. It should therefore be sustained but with some modifications in terms of time of presentation and encouragement of group listener- ship. Key words: Agricultural Information, radio, assessment, listener-ship and impact.