Adoption of ICT in horticulture : Confronting scientists' opinions with practice in Flanders, Belgium

At the 5th EFITA/WCCA conference it was indicated that ICT adoption in agriculture remains a universal and significant problem (Gelb and Parker, 2005). At the conference a paper on scientists’ opinions with respect to ICT adoption in horticulture was presented (Taragola and Gelb, 2005). The objective of the
current paper is to confront scientists’ opinions with the opinions and behaviour of horticultural growers in Flanders, Belgium. Data were collected at a sample of 208 horticultural businesses in Flanders in 2005. The results reveal that 90,9 % of the growers own a PC. ?²-tests show a statistically significant association
with business size, age and education level of the firm manager. At the holdings without a PC ‘lack of ICT technical proficiency’, ‘too hard to use/unfriendly’ and ‘fear of technology’ are more important factors limiting ICT adoption than at the holdings with a PC which is not used for business purposes. At these businesses, the most limiting factor is ‘the understanding how to get a benefit from the various ICToptions’. These results are in line with the opinions of the scientists in the EFITA questionnaires over time, which indicated a shift from ICT technical proficiency as limiting factor towards the lack of understanding how to get a benefit of the various ICT options (Gelb et al., 2004). At the businesses with a PC for business purposes, the results reveal that the use of ICT for management purposes is not fully exploited. The PC is used mostly for home banking, communication with the auction, invoicing, word processing, etc. In the future more research will be needed to address this problem.