Measuring Impacts of an Holistic Farm Business Management Training Program

This paper reports on the development of 4 new instruments to measure impacts of an extension program on farming family participants. A case study approach within an action research framework incorporating qualitative and quantitative domains was adopted to explore the impact on Queensland farmers of FutureProfit, a farm business management extension program. Two of these new measures, Management Constructs Change index and Management Objectives Change index, provided evidence of statistically significant changes in participant beliefs about, and attitudes towards farm business management. Although highly correlated with each other, these changes were unrelated statistically to any of seven other commonly used biographical or psychometric indices employed, including level of formal education. The third measure, the Bennett Change index, provided statistically significant evidence that attitudinal and behavioural changes were more frequent in participants with less formal education, but also more frequent in participants who had high urbanisation and self-directed learning index scores. A fourth measure, Values Domain Change, derived from the Management Objectives Change index, condensed objectives change data into values domainoriented scales, and showed that attitudinal change occurred across a wide spectrum of the recognized human values domains. Several conclusions are drawn from these findings, chief of which is that the approach used has successfully quantified impressionistic data in a way that offers potential for other researchers to document program impacts in terms other than hard quantitative measures such as changes in profitability.Farm Management,

Participative Approaches to Enhance Adoption of Fasciolosis Control Strategies in Cattle, in Yogya-Karta Province, Indonesia

Fasciolosis is a widespread, significant, endemic problem in cattle in rice-growing areas of Indonesia. Its effects are usually sub-clinical so it remains largely unrecognised by farmers and extensionists. Indonesian and Australian parasitologists have developed a suite of control strategies. Initial attempts to promote these strategies through Transfer of Technology (TOT) approaches achieved increased awareness, but little lasting change in farmer practices was evident 4 years later. This paper reports on the process, and early promising results from, an initiative to trial a Participatory Action Research (PAR) methodology to stimulate an extension process whose outcome is effective, sustainable fasciolosis control in Yogyakarta Province, Indonesia. In PAR, groups of farmers, extension agents and scientists work closely in a cooperative and flexible process, to resolve commonly identified problematic issues. The emphasis is on working with rather than for people through an interactive process to enhance opportunities for learning by doing. The process involved working through a four-step process to gain credible access to four farmer groups in three villages identified as having a fasciolosis problem. This was followed by a 9-month long series of activities, coordinated through farmer group meetings, which included (1) creating awareness through developing a media package, and then maintaining farmer involvement through (2) design and execution of field trials, (3) monitoring results, and (4) presentation and discussion of results with farmers. Group meetings were an important part of the information exchange process, and the use of learning aid tools was regarded as complementary for interpersonal communication. Of the four recommended control strategies, two were already practised for reasons other than fasciolosis control, one was acceptable but had prohibitive cost, and the fourth was unattractive because it was technically difficult to implement. A significant development was a new strategy generated within a farmer group that was adopted readily by other groups. We conclude that adoption of technical innovations by farmers depends largely on two issues: (i) the nature of the associated farming systems, and (ii) the way in which the innovation is presented through extension agency activity. A participative approach appears to have considerable potential for stimulating significant practice change, particularly if it incorporates farmer involvement in generation and dissemination of locally relevant knowledge and recommendations. PAR fosters such a reflexive approach.Fasciolosis control, participatory action research, adoption process, Livestock Production/Industries,

A human factors approach to range scheduling for satellite control

Range scheduling for satellite control presents a classical problem: supervisory control of a large-scale dynamic system, with unwieldy amounts of interrelated data used as inputs to the decision process. Increased automation of the task, with the appropriate human-computer interface, is highly desirable. The development and user evaluation of a semi-automated network range scheduling system is described. The system incorporates a synergistic human-computer interface consisting of a large screen color display, voice input/output, a 'sonic pen' pointing device, a touchscreen color CRT, and a standard keyboard. From a human factors standpoint, this development represents the first major improvement in almost 30 years to the satellite control network scheduling task

Factors Contributing to the Performance of Agricultural Credit in Lombok Indonesia

In Indonesia, national historical records show increasing agricultural credit provision by government, yet farmers seem to be unable to escape poverty. In addition, the repayment of credit has tended to be lower as years proceed. This paper analyses the performance of credit in terms of agricultural production, farmers' earnings, and credit repayment, and factors contributing to the performance. The analysis is based upon a survey conducted in Central Lombok, where the current KKP government credit scheme is provided to agricultural producers. Three villages within the regency were sampled, representing various repayment rates of government credit. Data were collected using face-to-face, semi-structured interviews with 65 farmers who had made use of government or other sources of agricultural credit. Studies of individual farmers making use of credit in the surveyed area indicated that credit had a small impact on agricultural production and farmers' income. About half of the farmers reported that credit did not help. The other half of farmers experienced a positive impact of credit through intensification and timely husbandry application. There was a varying repayment rate by individual credit users, which reflected farmers' capability, character, and motivations.agricultural credit, credit performance, Lombok, Indonesia, Agricultural Finance,