Study On The Farmer’s Information Literacy Education In Fuqing

With the rapid development of information based world,information literacy is becoming fundamental significant andessential. Especially for the contemporary farmer who want to adjustthemselves to the information age and be more competitive, they donot only need to have the knowledge and skills of farming but alsothe ability to take the advantage of information resources.Fuqing’s increasing growth in economy has boosted the developmentsocial information and it is accelerating the development ofinformation based agriculture. In Fuqing, there is a gap betweenmodernised farmers and the general lack of information literacyamong the local farmers. This gap shows the requirement formodernised farmers has not been met, which hinders the developmentof modern agricultural practices as well as the increase offarmer’s income.The report starts with analysis on how the information wouldeffectively reach farmers. The varieties of information sources andapproaches for information dissemination are important, howeverfarmer’s ability to interpret and apply the information into realpractices are even more important, this ability is calledinformation literacy. Next the necessity for Fuqing to promoteinformation literacy education among farmers will be pointed out andanalysed. The research conducted by questionnaires and real caseanalysis had found out that there is general lack of informationliteracy among local farmers in terms of sourcing, interpreting andapplying the information as well as the reasons behind this issue.At the end, the recommendations from five different aspects will bemade according to the available resources that Fuqing currently have.Recommendations include first, to create an environment where theimportance of information is fully aware of by farmers. Second, toenforce farmer’s information literacy education and help farmers know the basic skills of information application. Third, to improvethe information support services so that farmers will be able tosource the information they need. Fourth, to establish a system thatis designed to encourage farmers to take the initiative to learn andimprove their information literacy level. Fifth, to improve theagricultural information application support system and ensurefarmer’s productivity and income to achieve a higher level.