South African farmers' needs of agricultural data

Abstract

Data on agriculture are required by decision-makers, including farmers, to solve problems and make business decisions. The needs of decision-makers have changed over time. Since information systems are designed to aid decisionmakers, their needs should be determined. A mail survey among farmers indicated that they are chiefly interested in information regarding producer prices, prices of field crop inputs and statistics on imports and exports of livestock products. There is also interest in employment data and statistics on economic, institutional and infrastructural matters.