Information and Communication technologies as agricultural extension tools

Knowledge and innovation society are becoming priorities to the welfare and quality of life of the rural population. This is based substantially on scientific and technological progress. Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) accelerate rural development by contributing to more efficient management and rapid knowledge dissemination. ICTs are defined as a different set of technological tools and resources used for communication and for the creation, processing, dissemination, storage and information management. The rapid revolution in modern agriculture has led to investigations in many regions. One of them is the rural region of the prefecture of Pella that exists many years in the agricultural sector. The objective of this research is to evaluate the adoption of ICTs among farmers and determine the importance of agricultural extension as an information source in the region of Central Macedonia. For this purpose, the approaches of summary statistics in combination with multivariate statistical analysis techniques have been used. In particular, through the statistical package SPSS (v.16.0), there were employed two correlation methods: (a) the categorical regression model and (b) the two-step clustering. The primary research data were collected using a specifically constructed questionnaire, supplemented by personal interviews with farmers of the prefecture of Pella. The sampling result was to collect a general sample of 303 valid questionnaires.Categorical Regression, Central Macedonia, Information and Communication Technologies, Rural development, Two-step clustering

The Level of Job Satisfaction of Young Farmers Subsidized by European Rural Measures: Evidence from Northern Greece

This paper examines the job satisfaction of a sample of 182 young farmers from northern Greece who are beneficiaries of support policies, as well as the factors influencing it. The results indicate that young farmers are little satisfied in their job and the practices applied by institutional bodies are the main cause of their job dissatisfaction. Nevertheless, they like the content and nature of their job. Residing in peri-urban rural areas, the intention to continue exercising the farming profession, the sense of achievement, training opportunities, and optimism have positive effects on job satisfaction. However, considering that young people in mountainous areas have a strong sense of job dissatisfaction and claim that they are less likely to continue farming there is a need for integrated development of the countryside focused on the local needs of each area

The Level of Job Satisfaction of Young Farmers Subsidized by European Rural Measures: Evidence from Northern Greece

This paper examines the job satisfaction of a sample of 182 young farmers from northern Greece who are beneficiaries of support policies, as well as the factors influencing it. The results indicate that young farmers are little satisfied in their job and the practices applied by institutional bodies are the main cause of their job dissatisfaction. Nevertheless, they like the content and nature of their job. Residing in peri-urban rural areas, the intention to continue exercising the farming profession, the sense of achievement, training opportunities, and optimism have positive effects on job satisfaction. However, considering that young people in mountainous areas have a strong sense of job dissatisfaction and claim that they are less likely to continue farming there is a need for integrated development of the countryside focused on the local needs of each area

Multifunctional farms in Greece: a new business model need assessment tool for their activities

Multifunctional Farms, as a practical implementation of Multifunctional Agriculture, offer services and products enhancing Sustainable Development. Current policy lacks a practical tool to assess impact of activities in Multifunctional Farms. In our research we propose and test an assessment tool able to reveal main environmental and non-formal learning indicators in tourism-education-recreation activities, regarding visitors’ opinions. This tool can be used by practitioners, farm managers and other stakeholders, to assess their activities. Also, the tool can help Multifunctional Farms, to find their niche market, profiles of future visitors. This tool covers a huge gap between theory and practice of Multifunctional Agriculture, the tourism-recreation-education activities

Extension and Advisory Organizations on the Road to the Digitalization of Animal Farming: An Organizational Learning Perspective

Agricultural digitalization emerged as a radical innovation, punctuating the gradual evolution of the agrifood sector and having the potential to fundamentally restructure the context within which extension and advisory organizations operate. Digital technologies are expected to alter the practice and culture of animal farming in the future. To suit the changing environmental conditions, organizations can make minor adjustments or can call into question their purposes, belief systems, and operating paradigms. Each pattern of change is associated with different types of organizational learning. In this conceptual article, adopting an organizational learning perspective and building upon organizational change models, we present two potential change and learning pathways that extension and advisory organizations can follow to cope with digitalization: morphostasis and morphogenesis. Morphostatic change has a transitional nature and helps organizations survive by adapting to the new environmental conditions. Organizations that follow this pathway learn by recognizing and correcting errors. This way, they increase their competence in specific services and activities. Morphogenetic change, on the other hand, occurs when organizations acknowledge the need to move beyond existing operating paradigms, redefine their purposes, and explore new possibilities. By transforming themselves, organizations learn new ways to understand and interpret contextual cues. We conclude by presenting some factors that explain extension and advisory organizations’ tendency to morphostasis

Exploring educational needs of young farmers in precision agriculture in Serres, Greece, and the perspective of innovative agricultural educational programs

This study attempts to seek the main educational needs of young farmers regarding the use of precision agriculture in Serres, Greece. The main methodological analysis includes a descriptive analysis of frequencies, a categorical principal components analysis (CaPCA) and a categorical regression (CatReg). The most interesting result of this research is the fact that young farmers in Serres are well informed about precision agriculture. On the other hand, the respondents showed an increased level of educational needs and a clear desire to receive further agricultural education related to precision agriculture. Plus, the desired education seems to be influenced by their different social and agricultural characteristics, which can lead to the configuration of suitable educational programs, adapted in the particularities of each category. This ascertainment can lead to creating appropriate educational programs adapted to particularities of each category, in order to confront the multifarious demands related to information and training issues