Farmers' Resource Status and Information Availability and Utilization: A Study Within Northwest Frontier Province, Pakistan

187 p.Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1988.The present study examined farmer's access to and utilization of improved agricultural inputs and information. This study, which classified farmers into three resource status groups based on income, farm size, and land holdings, had two main purposes. First, it examined the effect of resource status on access to new improved farm information through different channels, and second, it examined the effect of resource status on farmers' use of information and new technologies. The research was based on interviews with 300 randomly selected farmers in Lakki Marwat Tahsil, Northwest Frontier Province, Pakistan.The major findings of the study were: (1) About 40 percent of all farmers got agricultural information through radio and television broadcasts. Most found the information to be useful "most of the time." The three resource groups were significantly different only on television ownership. (2) Less than 40 percent of the farmers read printed agricultural materials or attended extension-sponsored group activities. (3) Contacts between extension and farmers were minimal and biased toward the high resource status farmers. (4) While extension provided very little information on improved seed and chemicals to the farmers, high resource status farmers received more information than the other two groups. (5) Extension was considered to be the best source of information by the high resource status farmers, while better farmers were considered to be the best source of information by the low resource status farmers. (6) The three resource groups did not differ on the use of improved seed, but were significantly different on the use of fertilizer on wheat.Based on the findings of the study, the following recommendations were offered to improve farmers' access to and use of information. (1) It was recommended that extension should attempt to expand its contacts beyond the high resource status group. (2) It was strongly recommended that government should address the farmers' water problems as a prerequisite to bringing about other types of agricultural changes in the area. (3) Given the paucity of information on women in agriculture in the study area, it was also recommended that female farmers should be included in future research and extension programs.U of I OnlyRestricted to the U of I community idenfinitely during batch ingest of legacy ETD