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Determinants and impact of farmers’ participation in social media groups: Evidence from irrigated areas of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan

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Title Determinants and impact of farmers’ participation in social media groups: Evidence from irrigated areas of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan
 
Creator Tadjiev, Abdusame
Kurbanov, Zafar
Djanibekov, Nodir
Govind, Ajit
Akramkhanov, Akmal
 
Subject central asia
knowledge exchange
goal 3 good health and well-being
goal 15 life on land
self-help groups
goal 4 quality education
extension services
farmers’ behaviors
climate adaptation and mitigation
partcipaton determinants
 
Description The spread of information and communications technology (ICT) in Central Asia has reached a point where most farmers use smartphones with mobile internet access, providing an opportunity for a cost-effective and timely access to agricultural information and extension services. When extension service provision is poor and does not reflect farmers’ immediate needs, farmers often seek other sources of informaton, such as exchanging knowledge with their peers via social media groups in instant messaging applicatons (apps). Using the findings of a farm-level survey conducted in 2022 in irrigated areas of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, we study behavior and attitudes of farmers in terms of participation in smartphone-based social
media groups and its impact of farm performance. We find that in the two country contexts, underlying reasons for participation in social groups differ. In Kazakhstan, participation decisions are made by those who have better access to a mobile internet connection, are younger, have agriculture-related education, have a wider communication circle on phone with more than four individuals, cultivate fewer crops, have lands with low soil quality and poor irrigation water access, as well as located in remote areas. In Uzbekistan participation decisions are made by those who see the relevance of mobile internet for their farm business, have their own agronomic knowledge, are open to new things, care less about the opinion of other farmers, have higher perception about freedom in crop choice, have of-farm work, as well as poor irrigation water access. These fndings suggest farmers' participation in agricultural information-sharing groups (AISG) is influenced less by the type of cultivated crops or farm size, but by their institutional environment. The findings are relevant for developing private strategies and public policies to spread digital technologies among Central Asia’s farmers. When introducing smartphone-based digital advisory services policymakers are recommended to start scaling up with younger and more educated farmers who rely on their own knowledge and are more open to embracing new ways of farming and interaction.
Farmers’ decision-making autonomy will be crucial for converting digital transformation in agriculture into farm benefits.
 
Date 2023-06-05
2023-08-24T16:31:19Z
2023-08-24T16:31:19Z
 
Type Internal Document
 
Identifier Tadjiev, A. Kurbanov, Z. Djanibekov, N. Govind, A. and Akramkhanov, A. 2023. Determinants and impact of farmers’ participation in social media groups: Evidence from irrigated areas of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. Halle (Saale), Germany, IAMO Discussion Paper No. 201, Halle (Saale): IAMO.
978-3-95992-159-6
1438-2172
https://hdl.handle.net/10568/131641
https://www.iamo.de/publikationen/iamo-discussion-papers/
 
Language en
 
Rights Copyrighted; Non-commercial educational use only
Open Access
 
Publisher Leibniz Institute of Agricultural Development in Transition Economies