Identifying use and impact of the internet in the Greek agricultural sector : preliminary results of a survey of web site owners

Abstract

The great explosion of the Internet poses many new challenges in the agricultural sector. Recently, a number of prototype agricultural applications based on the Internet have been reported and it is now widely recognised that Internet developments will change many facets of agricultural input and production business. This paper presents preliminary results of a survey that was conducted to identify the use and impact of Internet in the Greek agricultural sector. A number of agricultural organisations and enterprises, having an Internet presence through a web site, responded to our survey which was carried out electronically using e-mail. Results of the survey indicate that the Internet is utilised and applied in a non-professional way and has not yet satisfied many key expectations. For example, only 9.1% of the total respondents are satisfied in relation to attracting new customers and 75% of them answered that they experienced a total failure in selling products or services through their web site. Hence, it could be said that the Internet has not yet influenced decisively the agricultural business in Greece.