Delivering too much, too little or off target—possible consequences of differences in perceptions on agricultural advisory services

Table 7 Advisors’ and farmers’ perceptions on the importance ^a of advisory services sorted in descending order based on t ratio for discrepancies; boxplots with medians and quartiles illustrate the distribution of responses

Area	Level	Group	N	Mean	SD	t ratio	p-value
Profitability	Production	Advisor	228	6.1	0.8	6.5	< 0.001
	Production	Farmer	412	5.6	1.3	6.5	< 0.001
	Company management	Advisor	228	6.1	0.8	15.4	< 0.001
	Company management	Farmer	291	4.2	1.9	15.4	< 0.001
	Strategy	Advisor	228	6.2	0.9	14.0	< 0.001
	Strategy	Farmer	291	4.5	1.9	14.0	< 0.001
Development	Production	Advisor	228	5.9	1.0	6.6	< 0.001
	Production	Farmer	396	5.3	1.5	6.6	< 0.001
	Company management	Advisor	228	6.1	0.9	14.3	< 0.001
	Company management	Farmer	287	4.3	1.9	14.3	< 0.001
	Strategy	Advisor	228	6.2	0.9	19.7	< 0.001
	Strategy	Farmer	299	4.6	1.9	19.7	< 0.001

^aAdvisors and farmers were asked how important advisory services directed toward different levels of the business (production, company management and strategy) are for farm profitability and deve