Sugarcane Development Personnel’s Attitudes Towards Internet Usage: Findings from a Study in Southern India

In India, sugar factories play an additional role of providing extension services for their registered sugarcane farmers, through the Sugarcane Development Personnel (SDP). The SDP work closely with the farmers, facilitating them to make informed decisions on sugarcane farming and ensure regular supply of quality cane. Surmising that these personnel would use Internet in the information-dissemination process, only if they have formed the attitude to do so, this study measured the attitudes of SDP belonging to two sugar factories of Tamil Nadu state in southern India, towards Internet usage. Data were collected from 40 SDP. The findings indicated that majority of the SDP were cane officers, who were between 35 and 45 years of age and had completed undergraduation. Most of them had PC/laptop for Internet access at office and had over 2 years of experience in using the computers everyday for farm-related activities. ‘Locating the required material’ was reported to be the major difficulty in using Internet for farm use. Majority of the respondents had a ‘moderately favourable’ attitude towards Internet, with the item ‘Internet is a fast and efficient means of gaining information’ of the attitude scale receiving the highest mean score. Stepwise regression analysis revealed that the variable ‘Experience in current occupation’ was a predictor of the attitude of the SDP towards Internet. The findings of the study would be helpful to sugar factories, state development departments, sugarcane/sugar research institutes and training institutions, while integrating cyber-extension into conventional agricultural extension services.