Assessment of the usefulness of functions available within cloud-based farm management systems in the surveyed farms in general and depending on selected farm and respondents’ characteristics [% of responses]
| Specification | Total | Farms with an area of up to 4 ha | Farms with an area of over 4 ha | Respondents with agricultural education | Respondents with education other than agricultural | Users of at least one decision support system in total (n=127) | Not using decision support systems (n=262) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Possibility to receive information about the risk of plant infection/disease | 77.63 | 65.83 | 90.00 | 91.27 | 70.99 | 100.00 | 66.79 |
| Access to an accurate weather forecast for individual agricultural plots | 61.95 | 48.24 | 76.32 | 80.95 | 52.67 | 92.91 | 46.95 |
| Possibility to estimate the consumption of raw materials (e.g. consumption of seed, plant protection products, fodder) | 61.70 | 42.71 | 81.58 | 86.51 | 49.62 | 96.85 | 44.66 |
| Yield prediction (depending on the resources used, detailed weather forecasts) | 58.61 | 39.20 | 78.95 | 80.95 | 47.71 | 95.28 | 40.84 |
| Collecting and storing data sent by sensors about soil moisture, air temperature, and nutrient content in crops | 55.27 | 35.18 | 76.32 | 80.16 | 43.13 | 95.28 | 35.88 |
| Remote information exchange with other farmers | 48.33 | 31.66 | 65.79 | 68.25 | 38.55 | 81.10 | 32.44 |
| Records of sales, inventories, payments, profits | 47.56 | 24.62 | 71.58 | 72.22 | 35.50 | 91.34 | 26.34 |
| Research on the impact of farm activities on the natural environment | 37.28 | 20.10 | 55.26 | 61.90 | 25.19 | 77.17 | 17.94 |
| Possibility to collect and process information from systems tracking animals’ behaviour, condition and physical activity | 32.13 | 13.57 | 51.58 | 58.73 | 19.08 | 66.93 | 15.27 |
| Remotely assigning tasks to employees | 19.54 | 5.53 | 34.21 | 38.89 | 9.92 | 51.97 | 3.82 |
| Remotely receiving information from employees (about the progress of work, problems) | 19.28 | 5.53 | 33.68 | 38.10 | 9.92 | 50.39 | 4.20 |
The area structure of the surveyed farms in comparison to Poland
| Area | Number of farms [GUS, 2020] | Farm structure by size [%] | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| up to 1 ha inclusive | 1 – 5 ha | 5 – 10 ha | 10 – 15 ha | 15 ha and more | ||
| Poland | 1 316 759 | 1.87 | 50.15 | 21.95 | 9.91 | 16.12 |
| Małopolskie voivodeship | 126 172 | 2.54 | 78.37 | 13.24 | 2.79 | 3.06 |
| Podkarpackie voivodeship | 114 182 | 2.30 | 76.86 | 13.75 | 2.96 | 4.14 |
| Farms surveyed | 389 | x | 62.98 | 20.05 | 7.20 | 9.77 |
Characteristics of respondents and surveyed farms in the group in general and depending on farm size [% of responses]
| Specification | Farm size | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Total | ≤ 4ha | >4ha | ||
| Age | up to 35 | 10.80 | 11.56 | 10.00 |
| 35–50 | 39.59 | 32.16 | 47.37 | |
| >50 | 49.61 | 56.28 | 42.63 | |
| Respondents’ education | Elementary | 6.43 | 9.55 | 3.16 |
| Vocational agricultural | 16.71 | 9.05 | 24.74 | |
| Vocational other than agricultural | 26.99 | 36.68 | 16.84 | |
| Secondary agricultural | 14.14 | 3.02 | 25.79 | |
| Secondary other than agricultural | 23.65 | 28.64 | 18.42 | |
| Higher agricultural | 1.80 | 0.00 | 3.68 | |
| Higher other than agricultural | 10.28 | 13.07 | 7.37 | |
| Employment | On the farm exclusively | 58.61 | 45.73 | 72.11 |
| On and off the farm | 41.39 | 54.27 | 27.89 | |
| Organisational form | Individual farm | 99.74 | 100.00 | 99.47 |
| Agricultural enterprise | 0.26 | 0.00 | 0.53 | |
| Type of farm | Conventional Farm | 96.14 | 97.49 | 94.74 |
| Organic farm | 2.83 | 2.51 | 3.16 | |
| Farm with integrated production | 1.03 | 0.00 | 2.10 | |
| Dominant production direction | Crop production | 79.18 | 90.95 | 67.08 |
| Animal production | 20.57 | 9.05 | 32.92 | |
Barriers to the use of decision support applications and cloud-based farm management systems in the study group in general and depending on selected farm and respondents’ characteristics [% of responses]
| Specification | Total | Farms with an area of up to 4 ha | Farms with an area of over 4 ha | Respondents up to 50 years of age | Respondents over 50 years of age | Respondents with agricultural education | Respondents with education other than agricultural |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Financial barrier | 55.01 | 37.19 | 73.68 | 66.84 | 43.01 | 78.57 | 43.51 |
| The belief that there is no need to implement such solutions | 43.19 | 67.34 | 17.89 | 26.02 | 60.62 | 15.87 | 56.49 |
| Hardware shortages | 38.05 | 26.63 | 50.00 | 47.45 | 28.50 | 55.56 | 29.39 |
| The need to improve IT skills | 22.11 | 9.05 | 35.79 | 26.02 | 18.13 | 31.75 | 17.56 |
| Lack of trust in such systems and their creators | 19.02 | 20.60 | 17.37 | 9.69 | 28.50 | 11.11 | 22.90 |
| Technical problems (the quality of local infrastructure makes it difficult to access high-speed Internet) | 16.20 | 11.56 | 21.05 | 23.47 | 8.81 | 27.78 | 10.69 |
| These systems are not intuitive/difficult to use | 16.20 | 5.03 | 27.89 | 21.43 | 10.88 | 26.19 | 11.45 |
| Lack of systems that fully meet the needs of farm (too few options available) | 13.11 | 7.54 | 18.95 | 20.41 | 5.70 | 18.25 | 10.69 |
| Lack of knowledge of such solutions until taking part in the study | 12.85 | 19.10 | 6.32 | 5.10 | 20.73 | 9.52 | 14.50 |
| Lack of access to training in the use of this type of solutions | 8.23 | 1.51 | 15.26 | 12.24 | 4.15 | 15.87 | 4.58 |
| Concern about sharing agricultural activity data with applications | 7.46 | 4.02 | 11.05 | 8.16 | 6.74 | 8.73 | 6.87 |
| Lack of time to learn how these systems work | 5.66 | 3.52 | 7.89 | 7.14 | 4.15 | 7.94 | 4.58 |
| I do not see any barriers to using these solutions | 1.29 | 1.01 | 1.58 | 2.04 | 0.52 | 0.79 | 1.53 |
Chi square test of independence results
| Criterion | χ2 |
|---|---|
| Assessing the usability of cloud-based farm management system features | |
| Farm size (up to 4 ha; over 4 ha) | 28,91* |
| Education type (agricultural; non-agricultural) | 21,39* |
| Use of decision support systems (Yes; No) | 48,80* |
| Assessment of Barriers to Implementation of Decision Support Systems | |
| Age (up to 50; under 50) | 97,55* |
| Farm size (up to 4 ha; over 4 ha) | 65,92* |
| Education type (agricultural; non-agricultural) | 64,36* |