Farmers’ behaviour towards Digital Agriculture in Tashkent region

Promoting digital agriculture is one of the ways to increase the productivity of farms, reduce the use of resources and enhance management. However, adoption of digital tools in practice also requires farmer's willingness and capacity. This paper explored the attitude of farmers to the use of digital agriculture in the region of Qibray in Uzbekistan, Tashkent Region, where there is a lack of direct evidence at the level of farmers and the national digitalisation policy is developing. The study evaluated the association between socio-economic, ICT-related and behavioural factors with adoption and the relationship between the perceived productivity, income and management outcomes of adopters and the non-adopters. A positivist quantitative design was used, based on a structured survey of 60 active farmers. The data were analyzed, using descriptive statistics, group comparison tests, correlation analysis and binary logistic regression, in Stata software. The results revealed a definite awareness-acceptance gap as only 33.3% of the respondents were adopters, while high levels of smartphone ownership and internet access were observed, with platform awareness also high. The socio-economic and ICT variables were found to be weak support, whereas behavioural readiness, particularly future intention, was found to be more significant. Adopters experienced higher productivity and management improvements while income improvement was weaker. The study suggests that training, affordability, advisory services and farmer confidence are key policy areas to focus on in digital agriculture.