Abstract

The North Carolina Cooperative Extension Service has invested both human and material resources and committed itself to electronic communication as a major program delivery strategy. The purpose of this study was to gather information on how North Carolina row crop producers were moving to computers and electronic connections to the internet and in turn to determine how the organization could best disseminate information to these row crop farmers. Cooperative Extension specialists collected information from farmers attending program activities with respect to who currently had computers and who had access to the internet. Focus groups were also conducted to gather the same information and to orientate farmers to the vast amount of information on the internet. Approximately nine hundred farmers were surveyed with 43 percent owning computers but only 18 percent with access to the internet. In both the survey and focus groups, farmers were concerned with the credibility of information on the internet. Producers identified the following factors as important for credibility: reputation of author, adaptability of information to local area, date of publication, potential of additional profit if information is applied, and information is documented and supported by research. Future goals among these row crop farmers for internet usage were: buying and selling, replace travel with internet, information that yields an economic gain, and have technology accessible from the field (truck or tractor).

Introduction

Decreasing budgets, organizational downsizing, varying customer expectations, and little consensus on prioritized needs have fostered the need to revisit Cooperative Extension client groups to determine how they assess needs, where they prefer to go for objective assistance, what are their preferred methods for receiving information, and their short-term forecasts for areas where they will need help in the future. There is little doubt as to the rapidity of change and the explosion of sources of information that is now available with current information technologies. The issue is not whether information exists on any subject, but how does one decide which source has the mosts reliable and valid information that addresses one's needs. Perhaps, the situation can be described as to who has the right information for the right groups at the right time in the right format.

Purpose of Paper

The purpose of this study was to gather information on how North Carolina row crop producers were moving to computers and electronic connections to the internet and in turn to determine how the North Carolina Cooperative Extension Service could best disseminate information to these row crop farmers. Other purposes included the assessment of information that producers would need in the future, and the determination of the most useful and effective form and format of information delivery. Specific interests were to determine how many farmers owned personal computers, how many were connected to the internet, and and how many sought information about their enterprises on the internet.

Methods

Data were collected from row crop producers by two methods: group administered surveys and focus groups of producers. A survey of growers attending traditional Extension meetings for commodities was conducted during the winter of 1996-97 to obtain data to determine the number of growers owning computers and how they used their computers, especially to determine if they used the computers for internet connections. These growers were asked: if they owned a computer, had access to the internet, used internet connections to obtain information for the operation of their enterprises, used the internet to get pest management information, and accessed the North Carolina Cooperative Extension Service web home page for enterprise information.

Data also were collected from row crop producers by means of "focus groups". Three focus groups were conducted. Three County Extension Directors were asked to invite 8 to 12 farmers to each focus group. At each site, a trained facilitator, using a structured set of questions, led the group's discussion. The questions included: what is the primary use of computers in your home; if the farmer did not own a computer, they were asked if they had made any inquires into cost of systems and whether they had sought details on hardware and services from local providers; how do you currently seek information for various aspects of your arm operation such as marketing, weather, varieties, and solving plant problems; and after seeing a demonstration of internet connections, do you think that you will consider using the internet for finding information on the different aspects of their farming operations.

The second component of the focus groups was a demonstration on accessing and searching the internet with a focus on pest management information. A variety of home pages was demonstrated ranging from those with many pictures to those with plain text nd/or tables. At the end of the demonstrations, growers were asked to evaluate what they saw and experienced during the demonstration. All of the focus groups sessions were recorded on audio tape and then transcribed. The transcripts were analyzed for key issues and points that addressed the purposes of this study.

Results

Based on the feedback from information collected at commodity eetings, computers are being used by 43% of the row crop growers (878 polled) in North Carolina. Of those with computers, 42% (18% of 878) of them are using their computer to access information on the internet, but only 21% of those with computers used them to obtain farm related information. Nine percent of the users obtained pest management information and to access the North Carolina State Extension Service information. This translates to only 4% of the growers using the internet to get information from extension in North Carolina. Most growers with computers indicated that they used them for accounting and some farm record keeping.

It is interesting to note, from information collected at commodity meetings (Table 1), that the highest proportions of producers reporting ownership of computers were those producers attending greenhouse, landscape, peanut, and interiorscape meetings (67, 70, 50, and 67 percent respectively. The highest proportions of computer owners with internet access were those producers attending peanut, cotton, soybean; and landscape meetings (50 and 30 percent respectively).

 

TYPE	n	Computer Access		Internet Access		For Farm Info		For Pest MRt Info		Access Ext. Info
		NO.	%	NO.	%	NO.	%	NO.	%	NO.	%
Greenhouse	45	30	67	10	22	5	11	4	9	2	4
Landscape	23	16	70	7	30	1	4	1	4	0	0
Blueberry	70	27	39	10	14	6	9	3	4	1	1
Interiorscape	45	30	67	9	20	8	18	4	9	3	7
Peanut	74	23	31	2	3	1	1	1	1	2	3
Peanut	48	17	35	4	8	2	4	2	4	0	0
Peanut	55	25	45	12	22	0	0	1	2	2	4
Peanut	80	33	41	14	18	7	9	5	6	5	6
Peanut	36	18	50	10	28	7	19	5	14	5	14
Peanut	13	4	31	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Peanut	35	9	26	5	14	3	9	0	0	1	3
Cabbage	35	8	23	5	14	1	3	1	3	0	0
Tomato	32	8	25	6	19	6	19	1	3	4	13
Vegetable	30	13	43	2	7	1	3	0	0	1	3
Vegetable	46	10	22	3	7	2	4	1	2	1	2
Pnut,cot,soy	20	10	50	10	50	6	30	1	5	3	15
Soybean	7	2	29	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Cotton	50	20	40	1	2	1	2	1	2	1	2
Row crop	5	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Greenhouse	8	3	38	3	38	3	38	2	25	1	13
Row crop	2	2	100	1	50	1	50	0	0	0	0
Cabbage	12	4	33	1	8	1	8	1	8	1	8
Cuc/pepper	14	6	43	3	21	1	7	1	7	1	7
Total	878	378	43	158	18	79	9	38	4	36	4

 

In the focus group sessions, growers were receptive to and not intimated by the computer nor the internet as potential major sources of information for their farming enterprises. Most growers who owned computers were using their computers for accounting practices for their operations. A number of growers reported that they used their computers for keeping farm records. Again, only a limited number of growers reported that they had access to the internet.

Following the demonstrations of internet connections and home pages, the growers generally expressed a high degree of approval of the home pages and associated information which they saw. They were overwhelmed with the amount of information. There was a general feeling that "surfing" to find information was too cumbersome. Some were particularly concerned about having access to internet in their homes because they considered some information to be objectionable, especially if they had children. Cost to get on line was a significant factor. This cost included that for connection and long distance charges. These growers expressed that the amount of time on the internet could get to be too long and might take away too much from other activities, especially family.

These growers were very concerned about the credibility of information on the internet. They felt that the credibility aspect could be resolved if they knew the reputation of the author, if the information was adaptable to their local area, the date of the publication, the potential for additional profit from application of the information, and documentation and support of the information by research.

The growers in these focus groups were particularly interested in market information. Other areas of interest included weather information and general pest management information. They preferred the presentation of information on the internet to be attractive with color pictures. However, the content was more important than the art work.

After the exposure to the Internet during the demonstrations, the growers expressed the need to get more education on computer and nternet usage. They wanted to remember where information came from which resulted in a lot of discussion about bookmarking.

The growers in this study had few ideas for long term issues concerning how they would use internet, but the vast majority expressed that they would like to have internet access. They generally felt that internet usage is still in the future for use by many farmers. Their future goals for internet usage were: Buying and selling, replacing travel to obtain information with internet, getting information that yields an economic gain, and having it accessible from the field (truck).

Conclusions

Based on information from both the group administered surveys at commodity group meetings and the focus groups, it is evident that less han half of the producers had personal computers and less than one-in five had access to the internet. Although the growers in this study had few ideas for long term issues concerning how they would use the internet, they did express the aspiration to have access to the internet n the future. Major topics that the growers expressed interest in for use of the internet included: buying and selling, replacing travel with the internet, obtaining information about yields and economic gain, and having access to the internet from the field, I.e., from their trucks or tractors.

To Southern Association of Agricultural Scientists-Agricultural Communications Section Home Page