An Exploratory Study of Farmers' Opinions at some Districts of El-Beheira Governorate Toward the Use of Communication Technology as Extension Information Sources

This research aimed mainly to explore the opinions of Farmers ' at some districts of El-Beheira governorate toward the use of communication technology as extension information sources, Three districts were selected in a simple random way, from each district it was selected one village randomly too, the villages were: Meniat Bani Mousa from Damanhour district, Ma'ania from Itai Elbaroud district and Tebah from Delengat district. So, data were collected by using a personal interview questionnaire during August and September 2018. The number of respondents was 210 representing 9.42% of all population in the three selected villages. Frequencies tables, simple correlation coefficient, determination factor, in addition stepwise analysis model were used as statistical tools and methods to explain and interpret the results.
The most important results were as follows:
- 54.7% of the respondents have a favorable view of using communications technology as extension sources of knowledge.
- The major sources of agricultural information for the respondents were the traditional sources they were: the experienced relatives and neighbours, agricultural pesticide supplies traders and their own experience at 63.3%, 60.4%, 53.8%, respectively.
- There were a positive significant relationship at 0.01 and 0.05 levels between seven independent variables, they were: educational level, agricultural acquisition size, contact with agricultural extension, exposure to sources of agricultural information, possession and use of electronic means of communication, and uses of mobile phones and known the benefits of using communication technology as extension knowledge sources and the nature of the respondents' farmers' views on the use of communication technology as extension knowledge sources, while the relationship was negative and significant, at 0.01 level between the age of the research and the dependant variable.
- The ten studied independent variables together were responsible for explaining 34.5% of the variance and changes that can occur in the nature of the respondents' farmers' opinions toward the use of communication technology as extension knowledge sources