14 Pages, Science Direct, Public and private agricultural information sources are fundamental components that could overcome the barriers to adopting sustainable reduced tillage practices. This study aims to identify the information sources frequently used by farmers and their role in changing from conventional intensive tillage to reduced tillage practices. The study is focused on the Altai Krai region in southwestern Siberia, which faces severe soil degradation problems, pointing to an urgent need for sustainable reduced tillage practices in the area. It relied upon both quantitative and qualitative data that included a quantitative survey with 110 farm managers and qualitative, in-depth interviews with five farm managers. Descriptive statistics were used to explore farm characteristics and farmers’ actual usage of information sources. A logit model was used to estimate the role of agricultural information sources in the adoption of reduced tillage practices. Results show that the participation frequency of farm managers in trainings and workshops influences the adoption of sustainable reduced tillage practices in a statistically significant and positive way. However, the estimation results give that the frequency of expert consultations (from both private and public sources) does not influence the probability of adopting sustainable reduced tillage practices. This may be explained by the fact that farm managers received limited information about sustainable reduced tillage practices from these sources.
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Document Number: C29016
Notes:
Pages 12-19 in Annamarie Matthess and Christian Kreutz, Participatory web - new potentials of ICT in rural areas, Deutsche Gesellschaft fur Technische, Zusammenarbeit (GTZ) GmbH, Eschborn, Germany. 41 pages.
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Document Number: C29857
Notes:
Pages 3-30 in Ian Scoones and John Thompson (eds.), Farmer First revisited: innovation for agricultural research and development. Practical Action Publishing, Warwickshire, U.K. 357 pages.
