Information and Communication Technologies as Agricultural Extension Tools: A Survey among Farmers in West Macedonia, Greece

This article critically assesses the potential of information and communication technologies (ICTs) as agricultural extension tools. Specifically, the purpose of the current piece of work is to identify the extent of the use of ICTs on farms, look into farmers' characteristics as related to ICTs' adoption and explore farmers' preferred extension delivery techniques. Data were collected through a large-scale survey addressing farmers in the West Macedonia region, Greece. Data were analyzed by employing both descriptive statistics and multivariate techniques. Twostep cluster analysis was used to explore the different levels of ICTs' adoption and a categorical regression model was estimated to explain this variation. In the first place, three distinct farmers' profiles are identified. Besides, it is shown that regardless of the level of communication sophistication, farmers desire a wide range of information delivery channels, particularly on farm demonstrations and farmer involvement in applied research. Results indicate that ICTs may supplement rather than replace traditional extension methods as well as that, new roles for extension agents may emerge specifically addressing farmers' needs vis-a- vis IT. The contribution of this paper concerns the relationship of the use and adoption of ICTs on the part of farmers with `traditional' extension methods as well as policy proposals for bridging the emerging digital divide within the farming community.