10 pages, This study was carried out to reveal the sources of communication and social network of organic and conventional hazelnut producers in Samsun province. The primary and basic material of the study is the data obtained from the surveys, interviews and observations of the organic and conventional hazelnut producers in Çamlıca, Yüksekyayla villages and Ağcagüney town. Both producer groups were compared in terms of their social networks and communication channels especially on the use of different fertilizers by making suggestions on how to develop it. The results of the research showed that socio-economic status of the organic hazelnut producers was better than conventional producers in terms of land size, income, cooperation capacity, risk management and agricultural supports. Social Network Analysis (SNA) has shown the graphs of communication networks among the producers, their relationships with different public, private and mass media information sources and especially revealed leader farmers whom functioned as source of information transfer (or even blocker) among them. The relationships in organic hazelnut producers’ communication network in the village are strong, dense and information sources are varied. On the contrary, the relationships in communication network of conventional hazelnut producers were looser, strong and information sources were uniform. The main source of technical information for both groups of producers was the experienced leader farmers; as for organic producers, the heads of the local organic producers' union was the main information source in terms of commercial, legal and organizational aspects. In other words, both organic and conventional producers rely on knowledge and experience of producers who take on the role of opinion leader within the village. Therefore, innovation and knowledge transfer to farmers can be delivered through these opinion leaders. As a result of the research, it can be said that institutional information sources do not adequately support organic and conventional hazelnut growers. Thus, organic producers developed their local knowledge source based on their on-farm trials and experiences and shared this knowledge within their peer groups. However, this information needs to be supported with scientific findings.
16 pages., Online via Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ.org)., Interviews with 203 smallholder farmers in Uganda indicated that households with higher level of information access through cell phone use and weak-tie information sources were more likely to use inputs.
11 pages, Climatic change has a negative impact on people’s livelihoods, agriculture, freshwater supply and other natural resources that are important for human survival. Therefore, understanding how rural smallholder farmers perceive climate change, climate variability, and factors that influence their choices would facilitate a better understanding of how these farmers adapt to the negative impacts of climate change. A Zero-inflated double hurdle model was employed to estimate the factors influencing farmers’ adoption of adaptation strategies and intensity of adoption at the household level in South Africa. Different socioeconomic factors such as gender, age, and experience in crop farming, institutional factors like access to extension services, and access to climate change information significantly influenced the adoption of climate change adaptation strategies among beneficiaries of land reform in South Africa. Concerning intensity of adoption, age, educational level, farming experience, on-farm training, off-farm income, access to information through ICT and locational variables are the significant determinants of intensity of adaptation strategies. Thus, education attainment, non-farm employment, farming experience are significant incentives to enhance smallholder farmers' adaptive capacity through the adoption of many adaptation approaches. This study therefore concluded that farm-level policy efforts that aim to improve rural development should focus on farmers’ education, on-farm demonstration and non-farm employment opportunities that seek to engage the farmers, particularly during the off-cropping season. The income from non-farm employment can be plough-back into farm operations such as the adoption of soil and water conservation, use of improved planting varieties, insurance, among others to mitigate climate variability and subsequently increase productivity. Policies and investment strategies of the government should be geared towards supporting education, providing on-farm demonstration trainings, and disseminating information about climate change adaptation strategies, particularly for smallholder farmers in the country. Thus, the government, stakeholders, and donor agencies must provide capacity-building innovations around the agricultural extension system and education on climate change using information and communication technologies.
10 pages., via online journal., The main purpose of this study was to categories and describes the profile characteristics of the women beneficiaries, to determine the use of communication sources by the women beneficiaries, and to explore the relationship between the profile characteristics of the women beneficiaries of RDRS with their use of communication sources. Data were collected using interview schedule from a sample of 112 women beneficiaries selected from the population of 280 by multistage random sampling procedure from five villages of Rajendrapur union under sadar upazila of Rangpur district. Use of communication sources by the RDRS women beneficiaries was determined on three dimensions viz. attitude, contact and application, and finally the use of communication sources index (UCSI) was computed. The UCSI ranged from 45.24 to 277.68 with a possible range of 0 to 300. Based on UCSI, among the 10 communication sources the first five communication sources were husband (277.68), neighbours (219.05), RDRS-worker (205.95), RDRS group meeting (193.45) and relatives (160.42). However, the last five communication sources were RDRS officer (134.82), mobile phone (112.80), television (68.75), inputs dealer (63.99) and SAAOs (45.24). The findings revealed that the highest proportion (38.39%) of the women beneficiaries had medium use of communication sources compared to 33.93% low use and 27.68% high use. Among the ten selected characteristics of the women beneficiaries’ education, farm size, annual income, daily time use, credit received and participation in IGAs showed positive significant relationship while fatalism showed negative significant relationship with their use of communication sources. Age, family size and dependency had no significant relationships. The women beneficiaries of RDRS had moderate exposure with various communication sources so, the concerned Government Organizations and Non-government Organizations engaged in extension activities should make necessary arrangements for improving the use of communication sources by them in income generating activities.
21 pgs., CTs (Communications technologies) have revolutionized agricultural information services at every level in the agricultural sector, thus impacting rural development and catalysing poverty alleviation strategies. This has largely been the case with small-scale farmers in rural areas in developing countries where mobile technologies have penetrated more than most other ICT tools. However, in some of the farming environments, mobile phone use is largely driven by agricultural extension workers. This paper seeks to examine the way mobile phones are used for information access in situations where agricultural extension workers are a critical intermediary in the agricultural information services. Interviews were conducted with 10 randomly selected farmers who were part of the Dzindi irrigation scheme. The findings were that from the variety of information available to the farmers the most important source was the extension officer. The extension officer and the radio were indicated to be the most reliable independent sources of information. The other sources, such as the radio, family members, and friends, suppliers of chemicals, books and magazines, were only considered reliable if the information could be verified or vouched for by the extension officer. Increasing the information handling skills of extension officers, training of farmers to use smart features of their phones and promoting the usual face-to-face communication use of conventional methods, which is what usually gives rise to the mediation of mobile phones, were recommended.
