Smallholder farmers' satisfaction with the content of agricultural information, and their preferences among the sources: Empirical evidence from Kwazulu-Natal, South Africa

Potentially, smallholder agriculture remains a significant sector in the South African economy because of its central role in developing a healthy economy in terms of improving poor people's earnings, employment opportunities, and protecting natural resources. However, access to agricultural information that informs smallholder farmers’ decisions remains important bottleneck to this sub-sector. There is scant knowledge on smallholders’ demand for agricultural information. This study seeks to assess farmers’ satisfaction with the content of agricultural information and their preferences among the various sources. Ordered probit model was employed to examine this issue using data from 458 smallholder irrigation farmers around four irrigation schemes in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. The results revealed that the decision to use different information channels is affected by institutional factors and farmers’ socio-economic attributes. The key factors behind their satisfaction with the content of agricultural information include gender, occupation, group membership, access to credit, community meetings, and influence from fellow farmers. It is recommended that government, non-governmental organizations, and other stakeholders should make concerted efforts to improve the delivery, access, and use of up to date and relevant agricultural information and knowledge. Also, farmers should be encouraged to be members of local informal groups as this is likely toenhance their access to information . Finally, policies, strategies, programs and projects for smallholders should be designed accounting for their information needs and preferences, considering developments such as the use of ICT.