Perilaku komunikasi dan keberdayaan petani wanita agribisnis di kawasan pendesaan provinsi Sumatera Selatan

The empowerment of women to make decisions and be psychologically strong is associated with the factors of social economic characteristics, social systems, communication behavior, role of support organizations and agricultural development agencies work performances.
Nevertheless, past researches show that women empowerment is still lacking despite the
implementation of various development programmes to encourage the involvement of women
especially in the acceptance of innovation in fields related to agricultural businesses.
Therefore, this study was carried out to identify whether differences exist in the women
empowerment in agriculture from social economic characteristics. This study also aimed to
identify the relationship of social systems, agricultural based businesses, support
organizations for agricultural businesses, and agriculture development agencies work
performances with the empowerment of women in agricultural businesses and communication
behavior. The study also investigated the predictor variables of empowerment and whether
communication behavior plays a mediating role in the relationship of the variables.
Quantitative method was used in this study. Data was collected using a questionnaire. Six
hundred respondents were chosen randomly using multi stage cluster sampling from three
districts in the province of South Sumatera. The data was analysed using the one way ANOVA test, t-test, Pearson’s correlation and Multiple Regression. The results show that
there are differences in the empowerment of farmers decision making based on age, informal
education, experience duration in agriculture and land ownerships status. Psychological
empowerment differs according to informal education, experience duration in agriculture, and land ownership status. The study reveals a significant relationship between social systems,
support organizations for agricultural businesses and communication behavior with the
empowerment of women farmers. A significant relationship was also discovered between
social systems, support organizations for agricultural businesses and the agricultural
development agencies work performances with communication behavior. Organizational culture, information seeking, innovation seeking assistance, knowledge development and
communication, access to information, technological development and facilitators contribute as predictor for empowerment. The study found that communication behavior does not play a mediating role in the relationship of the variables. This study supports the Diffusion of Innovation Theory’s axioms in the context of women empowerment.