7 pages, Present study was carried out in 2018-19, in the three districts of Punjab i.e., Faisalabad, Sargodha and Muzaffargarh to analyse the factors affecting dissemination of agricultural information to farmers through ICT tools. One hundred and twenty respondents were selected randomly from each district, making a total sample of 360 respondents. Concerning the general use of ICT
tools in the dissemination of agricultural information, the findings indicated a change in trend
from the radio (11.1%) towards TV (85.6%) and mobile phone SMS (75.8%). The relevance of information and ICT tools’ cost appeared as common determinant factors for technology transfer effectiveness by ICT tools. Furthermore, farmers also indicated that the most effective
tool to disseminate agricultural information was television, followed by the mobile phone and social media. Moreover, most of the farmers (81.7 % and 73.1%, respectively) indicated that the
lack of innovative information and difficulties in using ICT tools were significant barriers while
communicating via these tools. The use of television and mobile phones in extension should be improved because they were relatively more popular among farmers. It was recommended that the Punjab government should also design a system of periodic monitoring and evaluation of the use of information and communication technologies in the extension with agricultural universities’ participation and relevant non-governmental organizations in Punjab. A dynamic feedback system should be designed, based on the local advisory committees’ recommendations, to determine the local farmers’ needs/problems, which should be sent immediately to the Directorate of Agricultural Information to suggest some suitable solution and disseminate through ICTs.
11 pages., Via online journal article., As climate change is expected to significantly affect agricultural systems globally, agricultural farm advisors have been increasingly recognized as an important resource in helping farmers address these challenges. While there have been many studies exploring the climate change belief and risk perceptions as well as behaviors of both farmers and agricultural farm advisors, there are very few studies that have explored how these perceptions relate to actual climate impacts in agriculture. Here we couple survey data from United States Department of Agriculture farm service employees (n = 6, 514) with historical crop loss data across the United States to explore the relationship of actual climate-related crop losses on farm to farm advisor perceptions of climate change and future farmer needs. Using structural equation modelling we find that among farm advisors that work directly with farms on disaster and crop loss issues, there is a significant positive relationship between crop loss and perceived weather variability changes, while across all farm advisors crop loss is associated with reduced likelihood to believe in anthropogenic climate change. Further, we find that weather variability perceptions are the most consistently and highly correlated with farm advisors' perceptions about the need for farm adaptation and future farmer needs. These results suggest that seeing crop loss may not lead to climate change belief, but may drive weather variability perceptions, which in turn affect farm adaptation perceptions. This lends further evidence to the debate over terminology in climate change communication and outreach, suggesting that weather variability may be the most salient among agricultural advisors.
8 pages, Small-scale farmers face unique challenges. In this review, we conceptualize small farm success by aggregating and categorizing results from recent (post-2000) literature on small farm success factors and producer needs assessments. Our findings suggest that small farm success is multifaceted and not limited to profitability. We find that small farms have a diverse range of needs, though little has been done to rank their importance. We conclude that future research would benefit from increased methodological transparency and a systematic approach to needs evaluation. We consider the role of Extension professionals regarding the continued success of small farms.
