The Social Aspects of the Impact of ICT on Agri-food SMEs in Wales

It is recognised that Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) need to adapt and change toremain competitive in the rapidly changing business environment of the 21st Century. As withmany other industries this is evident in the Agri-food industry in Wales where Agrifood SMEscan attain a competitive advantage through the use of Information and CommunicationTechnologies (ICT), especially the Internet and Web sites. It is argued that many of these firmsare often not adept at implementing changes which are technology enabled. Policy makers,including the Welsh Agri-Food Partnership, also recognise that the Agrifood culture isadversarial in nature and this needs to be addressed if technical advancement is to be achieved.With the recognition of the importance of e-business in other industries there is a danger thatmany Agrifood SMEs will be technology disabled. The aim of the paper, therefore, is toexplore the social consequences of the slow adoption of the Internet and Web sites by AgrifoodSMEs in Wales and to consider ways of overcoming this problem. The paper concludes byreporting on ICT assistance provided by support schemes in Wales and on the social, politicaland cultural implications for farming communities.[...]