| Agricultural information plays a vital role in helping farmers to make sound decisions.Potentials of information and communication technology(ICT)to enhance the agricultural information and knowledge dissemination have been widely accepted.Over the past decades,developed countries have been able to transform their agriculture through increased digitization of industry and information services.However,the success of ICT applications in developing world agriculture has been hindered by a range of design related,economic,social and cultural factors.When developing useable information systems,it is vitally important to learn more about the users,users' characteristic,their informational needs and the way they act in accessing information rather than the design characteristics.Therefore,generating an in-depth understanding of information seeking behaviour(ISB)is important both for restructuring existing agricultural information systems and for creating new information systems.Many ISB models have been developed over the years,and most are narrowly focused on a specific role or discipline.However,no such specific model has been developed in reference to agriculture or an allied discipline.As a result,informational studies on agriculture are very diverse regarding the concepts and methodologies adopted,and most do not reference any theoretical framework or model.Consequently,the findings generated in those studies are not comprehensive,conclusive and cannot be compared.In this backdrop,the central research problem identified in the present study was the unavailability of a specific theoretical framework or model to explore the information seeking behaviour in agriculture.To bridge this knowledge gap,the present study dedicated to develop a model to study farmers,ISB in the context of developing countries.The research design related to the model development has four sequential phases.In Design Phase 1,a comprehensive theoretical and empirical literature review was carried to select a theoretical framework/model for the model development and also to identify dimensions and determinants related to farmers' ISB.Considering some recognized and widely used information seeking models,Wilson's 1996 model was selected as the theoretical framework for the model development process.Further,by referring to related empirical studies,dimensions and determinants related to farmers' ISB in the context of developing world agriculture were identified.The objective of the Design Phase 2 was to create a contextual understanding of farmers'ISB.Thus,a preliminary survey was conducted through which focus group discussions with farmers and interviews with subject experts were carried out.In Design Phase 3,the insights gleaned in the Design Phase 1,and 2 were embedded into Wilson's 1996 model to synthesize a model to explore farmers' ISB.The synthesized model consists of seven constructs:farmer-in-context;information needs of the farmer;activating factors;intervening variables;characteristics of sources/channels;information seeking behaviour of the farmer;and information processing and use.In Design Phase 4,the synthesized model was evaluated quantitatively and qualitatively using empirical data gathered through a survey of small and medium scale commercial vegetable farmers in Sri Lanka and experts' interviews.The quantitative evaluation was aimed at testing and verifying the importance of the model constructs and their relationships using correlation analysis.The correlation analysis results verified the proposed relationships in the synthesized model.In the qualitative evaluation,the model was judged to be simple,comprehensive,clear,general and precise.Thus,this study presented a validated model that can provide a sound theoretical and empirical basis for studying the ISB of farmers in developing countries.Furthermore,the study explored the information needs,sources,channels,and information seeking patterns of small and medium scale commercial vegetable farmers in Sri Lanka.The market-related information was found to be the most felt information need among the vegetable farmers,followed by information related to crop production,the environment,climate and policies,new technologies and training and development,respectively.Despite the increased availability of modern means of communication,it was evident that the traditional sources remained as the most trusted and accepted sources of information among the vegetable farmers in Sri Lanka.Accordingly,the vegetable farmers displayed an increased preference for personal and social information sources,market-based information sources and professional/technical sources over the mass media sources.The study also found that the vegetable farmers have a higher preference for the interpersonal channels than that of mass media channels.Of mass media channels,the vegetable farmers use electronic and print media channels to a certain extent,but the use of modern mass media channels such as mobile agri-information services and the internet is remarkably low.The study further revealed that,when selecting information sources/channels,the vegetable farmers place more attention on the contents of information rather than the design aspects of the information sources/channels.Concerning the factors affecting on the ISB of vegetable farmers,the study revealed that the vegetable farmers' ISB is greatly influenced by their information needs,the information channel characteristics and some of the demographic,personal,and role-related factors.The study also revealed that the vegetable farmers held the view that the present agriculture information systems of the country should be improved.The key contribution of this study is the model developed to study the information seeking behaviour of farmers with reference to developing countries.Furthermore,the implications of this study will inform the policymakers,information systems/applications designers,extensionists,and researchers. 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