Internet behaviour of horticultural growers in Flanders, Belgium

Based on a theoretical framework the influence of personal characteristics (biographical and social characteristics, communication behaviour) and business size is investigated on the use of five groups of internet applications : general applications (on-line banking, information on output prices, weather forecasts), information on input prices, information on environmental friendly production methods, specialised information and e-commerce. Data were collected at 163 horticultural businesses with internet use for business purposes. Categorical principal component analysis of the explaining variables resulted in 5 dimensions. A significant influence of ‘openness and active search for information’ was found for the general applications, information on environmental friendly production methods and specialised information. For the general applications also the dimensions ‘young age, high education, availability of successor’ and ‘positive attitude towards risks and environmental sound production techniques’ had a significant positive influence. For the last mentioned dimension also a significant positive influence was found for the use of e-commerce and the availability of an own website.