Factors affecting the growth of online agricultural communities for knowledge sharing

Sustainable agricultural practices are becoming important in the face of growing global hunger. Localised agriculture community knowledge is essential to guide these practices, but some barriers must be overcome to harness the full potential. Online communities can overcome some knowledge-sharing barriers that physical communities cannot. However, there is a lack of studies to understand factors related to online-agricultural communities' growth for knowledge sharing. We investigated five Facebook-based agricultural communities over 18 months, found growth patterns from member counts, and Cross-tabulated them with content characteristics. Results highlighted that distinct separation into knowledge creators and consumers stifles growth. Flourishing communities were marked by encouraging interaction for knowledge sharing, fostering social interaction, avoiding authoritative distinctions, promoting members to be prosumers, upholding explicit community norms and purposes, disseminating clear and relevant information, and possessing identifiable, self-explanatory names.