30 pages., via online journal., In this article we present and discuss two experiments designed to test the effectiveness of the Internet as a tool of agricultural information. Subjects were cotton producers from Thessaly, Greece. Findings suggest that, in the early stages of an innovation diffusion process, the Internet is more effective than social sources (Experiment 1). However, when urgent situations that force quick decisions occur (Experiment 2), the Internet is significantly less effective than face-to-face communication channels. In both cases, farmers who used the Internet spent more time and devoted extra effort. The experiments proved that agronomists remain the most effective information source. Results also illustrate that Internet adoption is not necessarily synonymous with its use.
INTERPAKS, Examines the continuing supply of scientific information that farmers needs for modernizing agriculture. A diffusion system must disseminate and integrate new knowledge into individual farming operations. The degree of functional differentiation and organizational specialization that best serves farmers is clearly related to the current state of agricultural development in a given country and the manner in which other support to agriculture is managed. Information systems themselves require integration into specific adopting situations; this, the mere transplant of a system and its organization from one country to another should be avoided.
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 96 Document Number: C07634
Notes:
James F. Evans Collection, In: Macdonald, June F., ed. Agricultural biotechnology: a public conversation about risk. Ithaca, NY: National Agricultural Biotechnology Council, 1993. p. 65-72
