Abstract:

The paper consists of two parts: 1. Part one describes the starting point of the Agrimonitor. This starting point is strongly connected with the understanding of and experience with some features of Dutch agricultural research in general and the recognition of some problems we constantly met in personal interviewing in this specialist sector. We all know that there is a growing demand for information, often of a strategic kind. And at the same time there is a request for information of a higher quality. Personal interviewing is often the most suitable method, certainly in agri- cultural research. However we cannot always recommend personal interviewing, due to limited possibilities in sample control, screening, complex questionnaires (routing, rotation) etc. These facts among others made us realize that only the use of computer assisted interviewing could overcome the shortcomings, and at the same time raise the quality level of data collection in our agricultural research. 2. Part two covers the experiences of the Rabobank Nederland, one of the very first 'users' of the computerized research method. In January 1987 one of the largest agricultural surveys ever conducted in the Netherlands, was completely carried out within the framework of the Agrimonitor. The Rabobank made use of many of the new possibilities. Possibilities which traditional methods cannot provide. Specially for the Rabobank, the sampling procedure of the Agrimonitor was adjusted