Performance Evaluation on Agricultural Counseling Agents in Palopo City and Luwu Regency, South Sulawesi, Indonesia

Abstract

Having a key part in a nation’s economy, agriculture has been striving with innovations for global needs. Competent agricultural counseling agents are among them as they function to modernize farmers in terms of knowledge, skill, and technology by transforming their ways of thinking, work ethics, attitudes, and behaviors. This study researched 117 respondents in Palopo City and Luwu Regency. Organized as per Likert scale, data was run through Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) by employing Smart-PLS application. The result on Hypothesis 1 came out with t_Statistic 3.286 > t_Table 1.986 with P value of 0.002 < 0.05 – in other words, agricultural counseling agent’s competence is positively and significantly influential towards agricultural counseling agent’s performance. As of Hypothesis 2, the result was t_Statistic 2.312 > t_Table 1.986 with P value of 0.021 < 0.05 – this indicates that agricultural counseling information system management is positively and significantly influential towards agricultural counseling agent’s performance. It is therefore recommended to optimize both agricultural counseling agent’s competence and agricultural counseling information system management to improve the performance of agricultural counseling agents in Palopo City and Luwu Regency.