Of Mice and Men: When Face-to-Face Agricultural Information is Replaced by a Mouse Click

Abstract

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.

Food Consumer Information Behavior: Need Arousal, Seeking Behavior, and Information Use

“…However, web sources are considered as risky in terms of validity and credibility. Moreover, as two experiments by Charatsari and Lioutas (2013) have shown, the effectiveness of such sources is situational and depends on the urgency of the information need.…”

“…Each person adopts different patterns of information seeking, depending on the need that drives the process (Charatsari & Lioutas, 2013), the type of information needed (Morrison, 1993;Nwagwu, 2012), the particular role the seeker performs (Lambert, 2010), the seeker's mood (Gasper & Zawadzki, 2013), his/her emotional state (Zhou, 2013) and skills (Buchanan, Cunningham, Blandford, Rimmer, & Warwick, 2005), as well as seasonal factors (Ayers, Althouse, Allem, Rosenquist, & Ford, 2013). After needs identification, the individual has to choose the information source (or sources) that he/she assumes or hopes will help him/her satisfy this need.…”

Theoretical framework and methods for the analysis of the adoption-diffusion of innovations in agriculture: a bibliometric review

“…In a different setting, in relation to information channels and, specifically, the use of the Internet in agriculture, research conducted in Greece indicates that in the early stages of agricultural information, access to the Internet can be effective. However, as progress is made and problems or very specific issues arise, the usefulness of the internet decreases and personal contacts with experts become necessary (Charatsari & Lioutas, 2013).…”

Using Contribution Analysis to Assess the Influence of Farm Link Programs in the U.S.

“…Farmers and Internet use. The body of literature that explores how farmers use the Internet is fairly homogeneous in its observations and conclusions (Briggeman & Whitacre, 2010;Charatsari & Lioutas, 2013;Chiu, Cheyney, Ramirez, & Gerr, 2015;Howell & Habron, 2004;Stenberg & Morehart, 2007). While most farmers do have a personal computer (Briggeman & Whitacre, 2010), the scope and scale of Internet usage depend predominantly on things like farm size (Briggeman & Whitacre, 2010;Mishra & Park, 2005;Stenberg & Morehart, 2007), income level, education, and age (Stenberg & Morehart, 2007).…”

“…In the early days of the Internet, however, the rate of its regular use for daily farm business tasks was much lower than that of other businesses of similar size (Warren, 2004). Since then, the literature suggests that activities such as sourcing information, email, online banking, and purchasing and/or selling goods are minimal and not universal among farmers (Charatsari & Lioutas, 2013;Chiu et al, 2015;Taragola & Van Lierde, 2010). This lack of use is not due to limited rural access: by 2011, about 60 percent of rural residents had access to high speed Internet, compared to 70 percent of urban residents (U.S. Department of Commerce, 2011).…”