Search results

The British Library Research and Development Report Information systems in UK agriculture presents the findings of a committee of fifteen agricultural scientists and information specialists, assisted by a research officer, who collaborated during the two‐year period 1976–8 to review the information system in agriculture in the UK.

The purpose of this paper is to explore environmental contamination from pesticide use in a Khao Kho Sub-district, Khao Kho District in Phetchabun Province, Thailand.

The study area was made up of four villages: Kanok Ngam, Lao Lue, Lao Neng and Phet Dam, all mostly highland areas whose inhabitants are mainly from the hill tribes. The 548 participants were recruited with inclusion criteria being that they must be living in the area over one year and are agriculturists or relevant who use pesticides. The data collection was divided into two parts: first, population data using a questionnaire; and second, samples of environmental media including agricultural products gathered to analyze the contamination of pesticides. The data were analyzed using descriptive statistics.

The most planted crop was rice (53.52 percent). Regarding agricultural chemical uses, the study found that the majority of participants used herbicides (76.83 percent). In terms of herbicide uses, Glyphosate is the most used (39.59 percent). Furthermore, insecticide consumption uses were higher in Phet Dam village than the other villages. The most common uses were Carbaryl (20.66 percent), followed by β-Betoefluthrin (15.49 percent).

There were glyphosate and derivatives of glyphosate (Aminomethyl Phosphonic Acid) in soil and sediment samples, while herbicides and insecticides were not found in water and agricultural samples. Because these environmental contaminants are a major cause for health problems amongst producers and consumers alike, agriculturists should be supported by relevant organizations to increase organic crop cultivation methods and organic farming networks.

The study purposes were to investigate the knowledge, attitude and practice of pesticide use and to determine the levels of serum cholinesterase among rice farmers in Nakhon Nayok province, Thailand.

A cross-sectional study was carried out in communities in Nakhon Nayok Province, Thailand. Multistage random sampling was employed, selecting one person per each rice farmer household. Data was collected from 188 rice farmers using a structured face-to-face interview questionnaire. A reactive-paper finger-blood test was used to determine SChE levels. Chi-square test was used to determine the relationship between the practice of pesticide use and SChE levels.

The results indicated that the rice farmers had a fairly good knowledge and a neutral attitude toward the practice of pesticide use. Most of the respondents had a fairly proper practice of pesticide use. However, serum cholinesterase levels of the farmers were unsafe and risky. It signified that 68.1% of the farmers had a health risk from using pesticides. The prevalence of abnormal SChE levels among rice farmers with improper use was significantly higher than that among rice farmers who had a proper use.

The result provided a guideline for operational planning and control and prevention of health effects from pesticides use in farmers or other agriculturists who use pesticides in cultivation.

Concerned local agencies especially health-related agencies are able to conduct a training to educate and build safety awareness including monitoring continuously the safety behaviors toward pesticides use. It can be implemented by establishing leaders from health promoting hospitals led by village health volunteers, community leaders and participation from farmers to collaboratively monitor proper use of pesticides beginning with health surveillance in the abnormal SChE group to be screened for pesticide exposure every six months or one year.

Farmers gained knowledge and understanding of pesticides use and used it properly, which resulted in a reduction of pesticide residues in body as well as in the environment. In addition, the government policy should legislate measures for related agencies to promote proper use of pesticides. For instance, Department of Agriculture, Minister of Agriculture and Cooperatives should regularly supervise, monitor and inspect the production and distribution of pesticides in local shops and also systematically encourage agriculturists to adopt using pesticides that are less harmful.

Having knowledge, understanding and proper practices toward pesticides use, farmers can reduce health effects of pesticides use in themselves and family members.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the functioning of the rural credit market of Lima from 1825 to 1865, paying special attention to the effect of information asymmetries on the access to rural credit.

The article relies on primary sources for the study of the early credit market of Lima. In particular, the study relies on a sample of notarized loans for 1825–1865 and on property tax reports, collected from the National Archives of Peru, to determine the effect of information asymmetries, collateral and regional lending on access to credit. The article also analyzes the legal system of Peru during this period to determine whether property rights were well protected and so collateral could be used in the rural credit market.

A revision of the legislation shows that the legal system had some deficiencies, but allowed landlords and tenants to use their assets as collateral. Tax reports show that landlords and tenants owned valuable capital that could be used as collateral. Evidence from notarized loans shows that information asymmetries severely restricted inter-regional lending. In Lima, however, notaries played a role as financial intermediaries, providing the information about potential borrowers and allowing landlords and tenants to access credit. As a result, access to credit was significant for landlords and tenants.

This paper is one of the few historical studies on the role of information asymmetries in the allocation of rural credit in Latin America. It contributes to our understanding of credit markets prior to the creation of banks.

Despite a lot of agricultural initiatives by the government in a regionally diversified country like India, agriculture is poor, and farmer suicide cases are rampant. This study aims to socially transform and bring behavioural change among the farmers of southern India through the usage of new media. The research has gauged the factors that affect new media accessibility and usability, hindrances in the process and change of farmer’s behaviour through online social marketing bringing social transformation.

The study is action participatory in nature, and the data is triangulated by conducting a survey at the first level using the Delphi technique among 184 rural south Indian farmers who are smartphone users use new media, and at the next level, the farmers were requested to use WhatsApp for agricultural new sharing, and in the last stage, personal interview with entrepreneurs and farmers has been conducted to understand their new media adoption, e-learning and online social marketing.

New media is the best way to transform agricultural practices socially. It is a forum where all the farmers of the country can get together and address the issue of the agrarian crisis. Online social marketing (OSM) through WhatsApp is one of the best methods of behavioural change because different farmers can share their experiences and emotion for the crisis and give an appropriate solution to a problem. And, one of the most important features of OSM is it removes third parties from miscellaneous issues be it selling, buying or seeking and sharing information.

Despite trying to cover different hindrances in the way of social marketing of agriculture, the study is not free without its limitations. Language was a barrier, and this study require a lot of time to perceive the changes and adoption. Also, due to time constraint, the authors have categorically clubbed innovators, early adopters and early majority in the same layer opinion leaders and adopters of innovation. These could be analyzed separately in five layers, as suggested by Rogers (1995).

From the managerial perspective, the government should extend services that teach the agriculturists, farmers the use of new media. The marketers and makers of apps and software can tap into this business for launching products for farmers. We need apps designed only for farmers, where agricultural and farming practitioners all over the country and globe can interact about their products, conditions of agriculture and give solution to issues arising in agriculture and farming.

The researchers posit that there are hardly any studies that provide strategies to the agricultural and farming sectors in a regionally diversified country like India. The study is one of its first kind to propose new media strategies to reach out to the farmers of different regions and segmentation for a behavioural change and adoption of new media for better and sustainable agriculture. It has gauged into the factors that affect new media accessibility and usability among farmers and simultaneously gave strategy for behavioural change.

At the Agricultural Extension and Rural Development Centre (AERDC) in the University of Reading, work has been in progress on a project entitled ‘A Review of Information Research in Agriculture’. The project, which ran from October 1976 to September 1978, is one of a series of reviews of information research in selected sciences supported by the British Library Research and Development Department. Other reviews have been in the fields of physics, chemistry and biology.

Coming into the information world with a background of scientific research, it is very easy to become confused not only by the jargon of information science but also by the seeming complexity of the information business. My reaction has been to apply the same guiding principle to the information business as I did to my field research, namely to search for the underlying pattern in the belief that the simplest explanation of natural phenomena is probably the right one. This approach has enabled me to take a fresh look at the fundamental purposes of the business in which this meeting is involved. The result may appear to be a statement of the obvious, but I make no apology for this; it is very often the obvious that is overlooked and can bear repeating.

The purpose of this paper was to study the information behavior of farmers regarding value adding in production and marketing. This paper is a component of a larger and more comprehensive research study of farmers and their behavior regarding the acquisition and use of information.

This research was qualitative and based on the Grounded Theory. In-depth interviews, observations and field survey recordings were conducted to collect data. Pan Tae Sub-district, Khuan Khanun District, Phatthalung Province, Thailand was selected as the research field site. The sample consisted of 14 key informants selected by the theoretical sampling technique. These informants were successful in value adding to their production and marketing process.

Farmers require information because of problems associated with low product prices and being taken advantage of by middlemen. Farmers’ information-seeking behavior includes: transfer of information from governmental academic officers and community leaders, exchanges of information among community farmers and training/study trips. Farmers use information in brand building, product differentiation and development of product quality, all with the main objective of increasing income.

Information behaviors of farmers were theoretically summarized from farmers’ development in their social and farming context. The new and expanded knowledge obtained from a Thai context will be useful for the science and profession of library and information science. This information will also improve methods of communicating valuable information to farmers, thereby improving productivity and quality of life.

Wherever one meets farmers, in a representative or private capacity, the same impression is left upon one's mind. The business of farming cannot go on long as things are. In solemn tones, one is assured that “something must be done to help matters.” A close survey of past experiences leads agriculturists to expect little from Parliament, and there is an increasing disposition to explore what little fresh ground may remain in an attempt to obtain relief from an impossible position—impossible because of its prolongation rather than its passing severity. The idea seems to be to turn to the markets and systems of marketing, without, of course, neglecting the basic business of production. It is on the farms that the foundations of success are laid, and that fact will not be overlooked. But recent years have shown that something more than a foundation is necessary to ensure prosperity, or even to permit of endurance. The few adverse farming years, marked by a lack of sun, that preceded 1928 tended to obscure the issue, but the brilliant summer and autumn of the present year disclosed the fact that production was not the root cause of trouble in British farming, and showed that it was in the markets that the difficulties originated and developed. The lessons of the current year are clear and definite and, recognising the force of this exposure of crippling evils, and the possible line for remedial measures, agriculturists, with a unanimity that gives weight and encouraging significance to the suggested action, have resolved to direct their energies and inquiries into new channels. Instead of confining their attentions to their own deficiencies, and striving to discover on the farm remedies for the troubles that afflict them, they are determined to extend their investigations into the markets. They have not acted in haste in resolving upon this line of procedure. On the contrary, they have long been blamed for not paying greater attention to their markets—for not studying more carefully what the best buyers required, and for not establishing facilities for reaching the best markets more directly and at less cost to themselves. There appears to be no one supreme authority through which a move could be made to establish better and more equitable conditions for the marketing of home‐grown produce. In the absence of such a body or Department, it is suggested that the Empire Marketing Board might be induced, or enabled, to come to the assistance of farmers in their efforts to improve their position in their own markets. The Ministry of Agriculture has done good service already, and may achieve still better results; but greater concentration is needed in some directions than has yet been attempted. The Empire Marketing Board may be restricted in the manner in which it can render help, but if its sphere of action could be extended to permit of its giving definite information concerning the relative values of alternative supplies of food, the Board would do a great work both for home agriculture and the consuming public. Existing institutions have not given satisfaction to British farmers in so far as their inquiries into matters of this kind have been directed and carried out up till now. Producers and consumers are left in ignorance regarding the relative merits of home and oversea foods of various kinds. The idea that obtains among thinking farmers is that such inquiries as have been made have been planned to favour their competitors. Whether or not such an impression has any justification may be disputed, but it is surely unwise to allow the impression to remain for want of evidence to the contrary. The Ministry of Health has not disproved this view of things, and home producers are becoming impatient with the manner in which their interests are considered in high quarters. The Ministry of Agriculture, it is believed, is working with diligence and wisdom to the limit of its powers, but the opinion is gaining ground that the Empire Marketing Board is the only hope of straightening out things on an equitable basis that would give justice to the producers in the home country. Marketing business need not be interpreted too literally or narrowly. The realisation of produce does not consist merely in placing goods on the market. The grading and classification of commodities would certainly come within the scope of prudent trade development. The suggestion is that the Empire Marketing Board might devote attention to investigations into the nutritive values of foods from different sources, not as they leave the country of production but as they are delivered to consumers in this country. There is wide scope for useful inquiry in this direction. No strong case for investigation might exist concerning articles such as wheat, which presumably do not deteriorate in transit. But in the case of meat, dairy produce, and other perishable commodities, it is believed that the treatment to which the articles have to be subjected to permit of travel affects their food value. It may be contended that chemical evidence exists to satisfy the authorities on this point already. But experienced stockowners, for instance, who have studied the feeding of their herds and flocks, will not accept analytical results as infallible proof. They insist that there should be actual demonstrations of food values. The Empire Marketing Board would do a great service if it could make good this deficiency on the part of the older authorities in respect to human food. It would be easy to suggest suitable lines for research and practical trials. There is, for example, the difference between fresh and chilled or frozen meat; between fresh and tinned milk; between fresh and synthetic cream. The question is far more urgent than appears to be imagined in Government centres. If the results should be different from what home producers expect or could wish, the position would be so much the worse for them. But they have reached a point in their fight against what they believe to be unequal opposition when they prefer to know the worst.—“The Times.”

The paper intends to comprehend the pattern of usage of FinTech services among bank customers during the COVID-19 pandemic. The paper also examines the factors influencing the adoption of FinTech services by using the constructs from the technology acceptance model (TAM) together with highlighting the issues faced in using FinTech services in Assam.

The research is empirical in nature. Data have been collected from 1,066 prime earners of the households having a bank account.

There has been an upsurge in the use of FinTech services in the area of study. Apart from government and private service employees, businessmen, self-employed professionals, many daily-wage earners and agriculturists have also experienced an increase in their frequency of usage of FinTech services thereby making technology-based financial services an indispensable tool in enhancing access, improving inclusivity in the times of crisis and aftermath. Government support, trust, perceived usefulness (PU), attitude and social influence have a positive influence on FinTech adoption; however, perceived risks impact respondents’ trust towards FinTech services thereby requiring necessary measures to evaluate organizations’ preparedness to deal with cyber threats.

The paper provides insight into the factors impacting the adoption of FinTech services to stimulate superior connectivity infrastructure, robust security measures and maintaining financial stability with adequate supervisory and monitoring regulations to enhance trust towards FinTech services during the crisis and aftermath.