No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

This study examines the use of databases to improve marketing techniques and customer segmentation in lending institutions. Specifically, this study examines the use of products and services by agricultural customers, and then determines the relationship between the use of those products and services with farm business characteristics. Information is also obtained on the interest rate sensitivity of the producers and correlated with farm business characteristics. The importance of technology and strategic alliances and other influences in the decision making process are determined after survey analysis. The survey was sent to producers who had some type of loan. Respondents from this study used an average of 3.2 loan products and 7.6 services for a total of 10.8 loans and services. Only 1 percent of the respondents indicated that they did not have a personal checking account. Twelve percent of the respondents indicated that they did not use a credit card. Only 16 percent of the respondents indicated that they used leasing services. Investment products did not have a high percentage of use. Thirty-three percent indicated they were using certificates of deposit, while only 21 percent indicated the use of money market funds, and 30 percent indicated the use of mutual funds. Thirty-seven percent indicated they were using IRAs. However, most of the respondents were using some form of insurance. Three-fourths of the respondents were using life insurance, while only 21 percent indicated that they did not possess disability insurance. Other services were also analyzed in this study. Only 15 percent of the respondents indicated that they were utilizing estate planning services, despite the 67 percent of respondents who were greater than age 41 and the 58 percent of respondents with greater than $500,000 in assets. Seventeen percent of the respondents were using an appraisal service. Due to the lower levels of usage for the investment products, this study focused on the relationship between farm characteristics and the investment products. This study showed that a relationship existed between farm and non-farm income with IRA usage. iii Only farm income had a relationship with money market fund usage and mutual fund usage. While, the use of estate plans was related to asset level. The analysis on interest rate sensitivity was determined by the amount an interest rate would have to decrease for a producer to switch lending institutions. The producers who were found to be less interest rate sensitive were those who had lower farm and non-farm incomes, lower asset levels, lower education levels, higher debt-to-asset ratio, and those who owned a computer. This implies that these are the more loyal customers to an institution or perhaps these producers have fewer opportunities to switch institutions. Producers in this study indicated that when selecting a lender/service provider, a competitive interest rate (76 percent of respondents) and the institution being a dependable source of credit (75 percent) was important. Knowledge of agriculture was also very important (69 percent of respondents). Internet banking and educational seminars rated as the characteristics that were least important, 3 percent and 9 percent, respectively. However, in the decision making process, lenders (69 percent of respondents), accountants (53 percent), and veterinarians (38 percent) were shown to be very important. The spouse/partner has considerable influence also on decision making. Sixty-seven percent of the respondents indicated that the spouse/partner had a considerable influence on investment decision, while sixty-one percent of the respondents indicated that the spouse/partner had a considerable influence on credit decisions. Five specific recommendations were made to the institutions following this study. These recommendations include: use of technology, institutional use of databases, use of influencers, and targeting and segmenting the marketplace. / Master of Science

This study traces the history of how farmers have used technologies from the eighteenth century to the present to form identities, not simply as ways of making greater economic profits. Using technologies becomes a way to 'perform' a person's sense of him or herself. This insight serves historians because it suggests that users, not just important inventors, drive technological change. My study also suggests that the relationship people have with technology (and how they use it to form their identities) has historical genealogies. Engineers and business people will also find my history useful because the notion of 'performative use' means that people's views of themselves can influence the way they adopt and employ technologies. Policy scholars will gain from my study because I show that the way people use technology to understand themselves has consequences in determining how they participate in controversies over science and technology policy. This narrative begins in the eighteenth century by analyzing how elites like Benjamin Rush viewed the agricultural practices of German farmers, regarded by many in the upper classes as backwards. I show how observances of German farmers by elites created a pattern repeated throughout American history where rural people would use technology to perform their identities for an outside observer. In addition, I describe an identity, which I call 'German agrarianism,' and contend that this rural self-image migrated to the Midwest when German farmers moved westward. German agrarianism had several important features including the association of morality with family-based production practices, an obsession with owning personal property, the inclusion of women in farming and land ownership, and the practice of performing identity through the use of material objects. Next, I describe a rural identity with English origins, one that other scholars have named 'Jeffersonian agrarianism.' This Jeffersonian identity saw farmers as heroes who conquered the frontier, preserved American democracy, and supported less moral urban dwellers. I argue that Jeffersonian agrarianism in the nineteenth century began to reject technological and social change and that this view of rural people as anti-modern has influenced the way observers of rural life have viewed farmers up to the present. This study then analyzes the rural-urban conflict of the 1920s, contending that farmers used technologies to develop their own rural modern identity, which I call 'rural capitalistic modernity.' Farmers used technology this way to combat a version of modernity, which I name 'urban industrialism.' This modern identity, arising from the cities, advocated improving rural life by making farms resemble urban factories. This factory model threatened German and Jeffersonian rural identities that existed prior to the 1920s because it removed the family as the center of production and advocated work processes that took control and property ownership away from farmers. In addition, urban industrialism saw farmers as backward and in need of reform, which offended farmers who saw themselves in heroic terms as a result of Jeffersonian agrarianism. I argue that many rural people in the 1920s used technology to perform an identity of rural capitalistic modernity as a means of combating these urban efforts to restructure farms as factories and stereotype farmers as 'yokels' or 'rubes.' This rural modern identity became reinforced during the Cold War because the farmer saw Soviet collectivized agriculture as posing the same threats as previous urban industrialism. In addition, the way farmers used technology to reinforce their views of themselves as modern became valuable to government actors in the United States who saw increased agricultural production as a weapon in defeating the Soviet Union. By the 1970s, farmers formed an identity called 'rural ultramodernity' in which they began to think of themselves as more modern than urban dwellers because of their design and use of advanced technologies and their role as producers in the global food network. This ultramodern identity incorporates aspects of previous rural identities, including an obsession with combating urban stereotypes of farmers as 'hicks.' In addition, this rural ultramodern identity views farmers as having an inborn modernity inherited from previous generations of farmers. I argue that this ultramodern way farmers think of themselves explains why rural people in the Midwest have embraced the erection of wind turbines, unlike residents of other regions in the U.S. From a policy perspective, this study also contends that debates over science and technology, such as efforts to render agriculture more sustainable and organic, are impacted by unexpressed fundamental views about nature and morality. Statements about these controversies often take the form of proxy arguments that sound 'rational' but mask these unstated ideas, and they often alienate those with opposing views. Current debates over genetically modified organisms, from a rural perspective, are actually unspoken clashes over rural ultramodern and organic identities hidden by 'objective' points made by both sides involving science or economics. This study also challenges the common notion that technology and production are male domains by showing how both men and women have used technology to construct their identities as producers on Midwest farms. This insight illustrates how disagreements over gender roles underlie current policy debates about agriculture. Farmers view organic discourse as threatening rural women's identities as modern producers by framing farming as an immoral, industrial, and male domination of a moral and female nature. Rural people view organic discourse as carrying on the tradition of urban industrialism, which saw farmers as backwards and farm women as unhappy and occupying an exclusively domestic sphere. This study suggests that any effort to reform agriculture must include farmers and incorporate the way rural people use technologies to form and reinforce their identities. At the same time, the conclusion advocates for a new rural identity that avoids farmer's tendencies to view all technologies as 'progress' regardless of their environmental or social impacts. / Ph. D.

Master of Science

Webster describes education as ….. “a science dealing with the principles and practice of teaching and learning". Vocational Agricultural Education endeavors to train present and prospective famers for proficiency in farming. The end of World War II found this country faced with the problem of readjusting to civilian life many millions of men and women who so ably served their country in the armed forces. The Servicemen’s Readjustment Act of 1944., Public Lew 346, and The Act Providing for Vocational Rehabilitation of Disabled Veterans, Public law 16, commonly called the G. I. Bill of Rights, was formulated by the 78th Congress of the United States with the expressed idea in mind of rehabilitating and re-establishing veterans of World War II into a more permanent and satisfactory way of life. The application of the provisions of these laws, as amended by Public law 377, 80th Congress, makes specific provisions for training; veterans who elected to pursue a course of Institutional on-farm training. The responsibility for training those veterans who had returned to the fam to live, finally rested with the Virginia State Department of Education. Much work had been done in connection with this program. Supervisors and instructors have spent many hours of concentrated work and study in carrying out a program designed to meet the requirements of the law, with specific emphasis placed on the needs of the individual veteran. The purpose of this study was to show some of the conditions and practice: being; followed in carrying out the institutional on-farm training; program, and any evidence of success that the program may show. / Master of Science

This research uses a mixed methods approach to analyze recent climate and land use changes, and farmers\' perceptions of climate change and its impacts on traditional agriculture in the village of Keur Samba Guéye (KSG). This work looks at the influence of social beliefs in adoption of new strategies by small farmers in this region, a topic that has received little or no study to date. Traditional agriculture in KSG is not very productive at present because of the impoverishment of the area and traditional agricultures strong dependency on natural climatic conditions. In this research, I identified recent climatic trends, documented changes in land use/land cover (LULC) from 1989 to 2011, and assessed farmers\' perceptions of climate change and their responses to such changes. To document climate trends and LULC, I analyzed climate data of twelve meteorological stations located across the country and created a classification of satellite images of KSG for two time periods. To examine farmers\' perceptions and agricultural practices, I conducted surveys of the farmers of KSG and in surrounding villages. Most farmers reported negative impacts of climate change on their agriculture activities, and interest in adopting new agricultural strategies despite long-standing tradition. Increasing temperatures and irregularity of rainfall may have negatively impacted crop yields, but more climate data are needed to clarify this phenomenon. LULC has been influenced by both climate change and human pressure; agricultural land has declined, while bare soils have increased. Several recommendations are provided that may help farmers to cope with changing climate. / Master of Science