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What are the prospects for citizen science in agriculture? Evidence from three continents on motivation and mobile telephone use of resource-poor farmers

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Title What are the prospects for citizen science in agriculture? Evidence from three continents on motivation and mobile telephone use of resource-poor farmers
 
Creator Beza, E.
Steinke, J.
Etten, Jacob van
Reidsma, Pytrik
Fadda, Carlo
Mittra, S.
Mathur, P.N.
Kooistra, L.
 
Subject farmer participation
motivation
mobile equipment
uses
research programmes
 
Description As the sustainability of agricultural citizen science projects depends on volunteer farmers who contribute their time, energy and skills, understanding their motivation is important to attract and retain participants in citizen science projects. The objectives of this study were to assess 1) farmers’ motivations to participate as citizen scientists and 2) farmers’ mobile telephone usage. Building on motivational factors identified from previous citizen science studies, a questionnaire based methodology was developed which allowed the analysis of motivational factors and their relation to farmers’ characteristics. The questionnaire was applied in three communities of farmers, in countries from different continents, participating as citizen scientists. We used statistical tests to compare motivational factors within and among the three countries. In addition, the relations between motivational factors and farmers characteristics were assessed. Lastly, Principal Component Analysis (PCA) was used to group farmers based on their motivations. Although there was an overlap between the types of motivations, for Indian farmers a collectivistic type of motivation (i.e., contribute to scientific research) was more important than egoistic and altruistic motivations. For Ethiopian and Honduran farmers an egoistic intrinsic type of motivation (i.e., interest in sharing information) was most important. While fun has appeared to be an important egoistic intrinsic factor to participate in other citizen science projects, the smallholder farmers involved in this research valued ‘passing free time’ the lowest. Two major groups of farmers were distinguished: one motivated by sharing information (egoistic intrinsic), helping (altruism) and contribute to scientific research (collectivistic) and one motivated by egoistic extrinsic factors (expectation, expert interaction and community interaction). Country and education level were the two most important farmers’ characteristics that explain around 20% of the variation in farmers motivations. For educated farmers, contributing to scientific research was a more important motivation to participate as citizen scientists compared to less educated farmers. We conclude that motivations to participate in citizen science are different for smallholders in agriculture compared to other sectors. Citizen science does have high potential, but easy to use mechanisms are needed. Moreover, gamification may increase the egoistic intrinsic motivation of farmers.
 
Date 2017
2017-05-09T13:25:05Z
2017-05-09T13:25:05Z
 
Type Journal Article
 
Identifier Beza, E.; Steinke, J.; van Etten, J.; Reidsma, P.; Fadda, C.; Mittra, S.; Mathur, P.; Kooistra, L. (2017) What are the prospects for citizen science in agriculture? Evidence from three continents on motivation and mobile telephone use of resource-poor farmers. PLoS ONE 12(5): e0175700. ISSN: 1932-6203
1932-6203
https://hdl.handle.net/10568/80928
http://www.bioversityinternational.org/e-library/publications/detail/what-are-the-prospects-for-citizen-science-in-agriculture-evidence-from-three-continents-on-motivation-and-mobile-telephone-use-of-resource-poor-farmers/
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0175700
 
Language en
 
Rights CC-BY-4.0
Open Access
 
Format e0175700
application/pdf
 
Publisher Public Library of Science
 
Source PLOS ONE