Is ICT Adoption for Agriculture Still an Important Issue?

Attempts to understand and improve the effectiveness of ICT Adoption for Agriculture have been at the forefront of national and regional policies ever since computers became available for agricultural management and production. EFITA* has been sharing these efforts via it’s conferences and the collection of data sets to identify ICT Adoption constraints and trends over time. The 5th EFITA/WCCA conference hosted in Villa Real, Portugal addressed the results emanating from these data sets and the ongoing Adoption efforts. It evaluated them via a plenary discussion of the question: Is ICT Adoption for Agriculture Still an Important Issue? The overwhelming response from conference participants asserted that ICT Adoption for Agriculture and Rural Development remains a major national and international concern. It was suggested that if cost is eliminated as a constraint the other ICT adoption impediments, in both developed and developing countries, are basically the same. Training, as one example was identified as a common, dominant alleviating adoption factor. Public funding to promote ICT Adoption and services was justified with qualifications. It was observed that ICT Adoption for Agriculture should be considered as an issue of public concern beyond farmer’s interests. The EFITA sponsored data sets support some of the conference conclusions. *EFITA European Federation for Information Technology in Agriculture, Food and Environment The support of the Samuel Neaman Institute for Advanced Studies in Science and Technology for preparing the theme background material is gratefully acknowledged. Background Attempts to understand and explain the mechanism and constraints of Technological Innovation Adoption are not new – e.g. Grilliches (1957). Adoption of ICT (Information and Communication Technologies) in rural areas as a unique challenge has long been a specific public concern with regional, national and international strategic significance. Gelb, Schmidt and Rauschkolb (1985) focused as a case study on Extension as did an EU sponsored workshop Gelb, Bonati (1997). Harsh (1986) generalized ICT Adoption trends in Agriculture. They were later evaluated via an EFITA sponsored questionnaire since the 1999 EFITA Conference in Bonn Gelb, et al (2004). The USDA Computer Ownership and Use Surveys NASS (2005) highlight as a comparative baseline the significance of ICT Adoption constraints since 1997 for a very large sample of US farmers. With this indicative, intensive history of effort and studying ICT Adoption issues in mind the EFITA/WCCA 2005 conference deliberated a specific question: Is ICT Adoption in Agriculture and Rural Development still an Important Issue? The conference’s two dedicated sessions and plenary discussion participants had access to additional background material. It included the conference papers, the ongoing analysis of the previous EFITA Questionnaire data sets, several ICT Adoption in Agriculture perspective reviews (currently freely available at http://departments.agri.huji.ac.il/economics/gelb-