Identifying the Audience and the Media of Communication: Targeting Technology Transfer in the UK Cereals Industry

Abstract

In this paper the authors present an analysis of UK cereal growers' use and perceptions of different methods of technology transfer, together with their preferences for methods of receiving technical information in the future. Data were collected through individual face-to-face interviews with 79 cereal growers. Using the variables, farm size, age and education, growers have been classified into eight homogeneous groups. Each group's preference for means of receiving information about new developments in crop husbandry in the near future is identified. Younger growers who have undertaken further or higher education and who have large farms would prefer to receive information from a variety of sources including independent advisers, Home-Grown Cereals Authority (HGCA) literature, conferences, roadshows and local agronomy groups. By contrast, older growers who have small farms and have not undertaken further or higher education have a preference for receiving information from the farming press, other growers and merchants' representatives.

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All growers in the sample were male, hence the reference to the male gender only throughout the remainder of this paper.

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The full set of mean scores is available from the corresponding author upon request.