Empirical Study On The Sci-Tech Demands Of Farmers In Yangling HDZ

The sci-tech demands of farmers in Yangling Agricultural Hi-tech Industries Demonstration Zone (Yangling HDZ) were explored in this paper, from the perspective of rural sociology and sociology of development. Qualitative and quantitative analysis, questionnaires and statistical analysis were all employed. The demands of farmers were explored from the dimensions of willingness and types. According to its level of abstraction, sci-tech knowledge was ranked from high to low level as follows: general sci-tech knowledge, agro-knowledge, agricultural tecgbiques, production skills. The main findings are as follows:ⅰ. Generally, the farmers in Yangling HDZ have strong desire for sci-tech knowledgeⅱ. Gender, gender,educational level and income sources have significant impacts on framers'desire for sci-tech knowledge, while ages, average annual income per capita almost have no significant influence on that.ⅲ. The demand of farmers in Yangling HDZ for sci-tech knowledge mainly revolves around operational agricultural techniques and production skills. There is less demand for theoretical agricultural knowledge and general scientific knowledge. Age, educational level plays significant role on demand type, while gender, income sources and average annual income per capita have no influence on that.ⅳ. For farmers in Yangling HDZ, their demand for specific applied agricultural techniques is decided by their income source. Famers heavily dependent on farming income would like to pay much more attention to techniques that would help to improve product quality and output. While for farmers whose income is not from farming, they'd like to pay less or even no attention to such kinds of techniques. But both kinds of farmers would like to pay much attention to money-saving techniques, then to techniques that would save lands, and have less demand for labor-saving techniques. The only difference is that, compared with farmers depending mainly on farming income, farmers dependent on non-farming income would be less motivated for almost all kinds of techniques.What to be concerned about is that , the lower quality in sci-tech knowledge would aggravate the poverty of famers, thus to hinder the demand of the disadvantaged framing population for scientific knowledge. Comparatively speaking, farmers have stronger demands for capital, market information and services. This would also influence their demand for scientific knowledge.In the end this paper put forward suggestions and countermeasures to enhance farmers demands for scientific knowledge in regards to the climate of agriculture development, the spreading channels and approaches of sci-tech knowledge, enhancing farmers consciousness for market economy, the capacity o f farmers for sci-tech innovation and application, the care for the disadvantaged farming population, the regulating of markets, the R&D of follow-up and alternative technologies.