Faculty of Education - Theses
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ItemEducational needs of part-time and small-scale farmers: an investigation of information requirements in agriculturally related areas( 1989)There has been in the past a strong tendency for most investigations of agricultural education needs for farmers to concentrate largely on what are seen as `typical' farmers. In general, these have been perceived as full-time farmers running full-scale, commercially-viable farming enterprises. In fact, this particular perception of farmers has probably never been entirely valid, and a multitude of studies in several different countries indicates that it is rapidly becoming even less so. The present study draws on information from a variety of sources. It demonstrates that there is an increasingly important group of people engaged in a wide variety of agriculturally-related farm enterprises who do not depend on their land for total income. There are some indications, both in Australia and elsewhere, that their actual needs in information and techniques may not be the same as those required by so-called `typical' or `traditional' farmers. Also, due to time constraints for those who hold off-farm employment, the usual methods of delivering this information may not always be suitable. This study seeks to address both these problems. It looks at some proposed solutions, and uses information from a pilot survey of 49 local part-time farmers, carried out by the author, in order to gain an indication of those solutions which might apply to the Australian situation. A comparison is made with a similar American study.