Understanding South Dakota Farmers’ Intentions to and Adoption of Conservation Practices: An Examination of the Theory of Planned Behavior

Conservation agriculture practice is a sustainable farming method based on three principle: crop diversification, minimal soil disturbance or movement and permanent or semi-permanent of soil cover. Government and stakeholders within the agricultural sector in the United States are promoting conservation farming practices but limited voluntary adoption still exists among producers at the farm level. This research study investigated the factors that influence the adoption of conservation practices among producers in the eastern and central parts of South Dakota (SD). A modified theory of planned behavior (TPB) is used as a framework alongside socioeconomic and demographic indicators to understand farmers’ current behavior and future intentions towards the adoption of conservation practices. Data were gathered from a sample of 3000 farming operations whose main crops are corn, soybeans, and wheat. Respondents were contacted three times using a modified tailored design approach by Don A. Dillman. The results from the Pearson correlation and the binary logistic regression confirms that TPB is a useful framework for understanding the behavior of farmers. Most of the three constructs of the TPB correlated significantly to the adoption of cover crops, conservation tillage, and diversified crop rotation. The binary logistic regression model also suggests that attitude and perceived behavioral control predicted farmers\u27 likelihood of adopting conservation tillage. This study also provided empirical evidence of the conservation practices producers currently use and those that they don’t use but intend to use in the future. This will help policymakers and conservation practitioners to develop policy measures that will help increase the voluntary adoption of conservation practices among farmers in SD

Utilization of Information Technology Facilities for Research by Undergraduate Students in Nigerian Tertiary Institutions

Information Technology (IT) has added value to effective research productivity in Nigeria tertiary institutions and colleges. This study employed a survey research method on the availability and use of IT facilities for undergraduate  students’ research work in five schools of Federal College of Education, Obudu, Cross River State. The respondents were two hundred students who were randomly selected from the five schools of the college. A Questionnaire method was used for data collection. The findings of the study revealed that  use of computer and internet were the  major IT facilities  used  for students’ research work but the extent of use were mostly occasionally 33(16.15%) for School of Education, Arts and Social Sciences 24 (12.0%) while Languages, Vocation and Sciences recorded  22(11.0%), 20(10.0%) and 10(5.0%) respectively. The major obstacles for non-use of IT were Inadequate IT facilities 70(35.0%), incessant power failure 60(30.0%) and Inadequate skills 50(25.0%) amongst others. However, the need for acquisition of more IT facilities in the various Schools as well as adequate training programmes for students would boost their knowledge skills in the effective use and access to scholarly information resources for research output. Keywords: Information Technology Facilities, Federal College of Education, Undergraduate Students, CRS, Nigeria