| Summary: | 碩士 === 國立中興大學 === 農業推廣教育研究所 === 94 === Abstract
Women devote themselves to starting their own business have blossomed in recent years. Along with the development of such a trent, there emerge abundant related issues worthy of our in-depth research. In addition, organic agriculture is a burgeoning industry in Taiwan, which attracts invokes many who have interests in organic farming to take part in development of organic agriculture. Based on the literature review on research of traditional farming work, the female group is usually recognized as assistants farmers. However, the fact is there exist more and more female farmers in charge of the farm management on their own or in collaboration with their husbands. They can be viewed as female farm managers because they either make the business decisions themselves or actively participate in and share the decision-making with their partners. Even though, for most female farmers or organic farmers, little is known about them as a farm manager.
Built upon the theory of diffusion of innovations, this study focuses on female organic farmers who are licensed by the organizations that are eligible for conferring the organic farming certification. The main research purpose is to investigate how female organic farmers use different channels to acquire different types of innovative information related to their decision-making on farming. The research approach used for the study includes a semi-structural which emphasizes on closer and deeper talks with the female organic farmers targeted for investigation. Besides, secondary data are collected and analyzed to better understand how they search for innovative information to solve the problems they have encountered while participating in organic farming .
According to the findings of this study, the female organic farmers actually employ the channels of their preference to get different information in need for problem solving. When categoricing innovative information in relation to organic farming into three types, from basic information of organic farming, production information, the analysis results regarding the communication channels adopted by these female organic farmers reveal:
1. Channels used for acquiring the basic information of organic farming include: interpersonal communication, group communication, and mass communication channels.
2. Channels adopted for searching for production information cover: interpersonal communication, group communication, and mass communication channels. But the inter personal communication channel is most frequently used by the majority of those interviewed.
3. Channels applied to obtaining the management information only include the interpersonal communication channel.
The factors having influences on female organic farmers’ use of communication channels to acquire innovative information are further identified, and they are individual personality, characteristics of their social-economic status, and reference groups.
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