Diffusion of farm information in two Middle Tennessee communities : a survey

The purpose of this study was to determine what factors affect a farmer's use of information sources. In particular, the relationships between age, education, income, number of enterprises engaged in, and cosmopolitanism and the number of sources used were examined. Community influence was also considered as a possible predictor of source usage.

Two Wilson County, Tennessee communities were chosen for the study because they are typical of two types of rural communities in Tennessee. Mt. Juliet is a changing community which has experienced rapid growth because of a migration of middle-management and professional persons from Nashville. Watertown is a more stable community with stronger local ties and more traditional norms.

A survey was conducted of 60 farmers in each community to determine which factors are related to source use.

The data showed that the farmers in Mt. Juliet used significantly more sources of information than did those in Watertown. Education was a significant predictor of source use in Mt. Juliet while age was a significant predictor of source use in Watertown.

In both towns those individuals designated as cosmopolitans used more sources than those designated as locals. However, cosmopolitans from the cosmopolitan community did not use significantly more sources than cosmopolitans from the local community and locals from the cosmopolitan community did not use more sources than locals from the local community.

The study has implications for extension workers and other ag communicators in Tennessee. In different types of communities, different communication methods may be needed to disseminate messages about new technology and recommended practices. In cosmopolitan communities extra effort may be needed to reach less educated farmers. In local communities, on the other hand, the hard-to-reach audience may be the older farmers.

Additional research is needed on community influence on farmers' source usage. More information is needed on why farmers living in a particular community are more likely to make use of available sources while farmers living in another community nearby do not.