Published in Scientific Papers. Series "Management, Economic Engineering in Agriculture and rural development", Vol. 24 ISSUE 4
Written by Radu Andrei IOVA, Daniela CREȚU, Oana Roberta CREȚU

In the context in which there is talk of “smart agriculture”, high precision technique, agriculture with high added value, but also increasingly sophisticated agricultural production marketing schemes, financial instruments available to farmers - the need for them to have access to all these news and innovations. All this is all the more relevant in a country like Romania, whose numerous small and medium-sized farms must produce really intelligently in order to be competitive and to resist the market. The purpose of this study is to identify and analyze the farmers needs regarding agricultural consultancy services, from the point of view of the content of the consultancy but also of the sources they turn to satisfy these needs. In this sense, we initiated a survey based on an interview with 4 questions, on a number of 110 respondents from all categories of existing legal forms in agriculture, with predominant activity - plant growing, and we collected information on the situations in which they appealed to consultancy services, the need for such services, the efficiency of agricultural consultancy services, the sources of information they turn to, etc. The research was based on the method of interview-based survey and χ2 test. Analyzing the answers, it is found that farmers are relatively confused about the source they should turn to for the various types of consultancy regarding their business, the range being heterogeneous in this regard, from Agricultural Chambers, to private consultancy, internet, mass media, etc. These assessments of farmers needs, both in terms of required know-how content and preferred sources of agricultural consultancy, need to be updated and built on. In order to support farmers, it is needed to develop an integrated consultancy system into a regional ecosystem that also includes clusters, universities, information centers, research institutes.

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