Situation of Agricultural Information and Communication Technology (ict) in Germany

The state of adoption and diffusion of information and communication technology in German agriculture is described using results from three independent questionnaire surveys, conducted in 2000/2001. The use of information technology is widely spread among German farmers, the majority of farms have a PC, use it to connect to the Internet and are frequent e-mail and web users. Even though many farmers have bought products for their private use online, there are still many obstacles hindering the use of e-commerce applications to buy and sell products for business purposes. Ecommerce shares in farms’ annual turnover are small. Open questions concerning the security of data and contracts on the Internet lead to reluctant participation in e-commerce. The vast majority uses the Internet to access information and the majority thinks the quality of this information is better than that received through traditional media channels.