Fifty Louisiana dairy farmers were interviewed to gather production amounts, costs of production, management techniques, technologies adopted, and demographic information. These data were used to analyze what record-keeping systems the farmers were adopting and to what extent the systems were being used. Logit, ordered probit, negative binomial regression, OLS regression, and double hurdle models were used to determine adoption and intensity.
In this study, age was found to decrease the probability that a farmer would believe their computer was not at all useful and also of limited usefulness, while increasing the probability that a farmer would believe the computer was very useful to the farm business. Older farmers were more likely to perceive the computer as more useful.
Having a family successor to take over the dairy upon the operators retirement affected many things, including: decreasing experience with the internet; increasing the probability of a farmer perceiving the computer as of limited usefulness; decreasing the probability of a farmer perceiving the computer as very useful; increasing the hours spent per week reviewing DHIA output; increasing the number of financial measures tracked; increasing the intensity of use of DHIA after it has been adopted; and increasing the probability of adopting computerized record-keeping systems.
If the operator himself kept the records for the farm, then fewer financial statements were generated and less time was spent updating computerized record-keeping systems. These farmers, however, devoted more time to reviewing DHIA output.
When the farmer was a technology adopter he was more likely to have experience with the internet and to have adopted DHIA, but spend less time reviewing DHIA output. Also, technology adopters were more likely to view the computer as very useful and less likely to view the computer as not at all useful.
The more statements a farmer generated for financial analysis, the more likely he was to adopt computerized record-keeping systems. Thus, farmers with a greater interest in record-keeping were likely to find the computer more useful because it can make financial analysis much easier compared to paper based records.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LSU/oai:etd.lsu.edu:etd-05302007-183453 |
| Date | 04 June 2007 |
| Creators | Grisham, Elisabeth |
| Contributors | John Westra, Michael Salassi, Jeffrey Gillespie |
| Publisher | LSU |
| Source Sets | Louisiana State University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.lsu.edu/docs/available/etd-05302007-183453/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached herein a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to LSU or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below and in appropriate University policies, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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