Shannon Entropy as an Indicator of the Effectiveness of E-Advisory in Ukraine

The paper considers the possibilities of optimizing the search for agricultural information based on Shannon information entropy criterion. A comparison of the degree of uncertainty of information search through the Internet – search systems with similar indicators of Ukrainian agricultural websites. According to the number of hit count in Ukraine in July 2020 to the search engine, which consists of 10 sources, and to agricultural websites (43 sources) by estimating entropy, a conclusion was made about the significant degree of dispersion of agricultural information sources. It should be emphasized that the artificial division into 4 categories (AgroMedia, Agrotrade web resources, Information and advisory resources, Specialized web resources) did not improve the situation according to the degree of uncertainty compared to the search engine system. As for the entropy index, for almost all 4 categories of entropy indices (heterogeneity or diversity) is close to the case of uniform distribution, i.e., the same hit count of all possible resources (their number for all categories is approximately the same 10-11). As a result of the analysis of the potential client base of electronic consulting, it can be quantified as 4,700,000 of agricultural households and about 50,000 small and medium-sized farms. The transition to the land market is likely to lead to a substantial increase in the number of the latter. It was demonstrated that the current educational level of household owners indicates both the need to increase this indicator and the presence of a close relationship with the existing system of professional advisory in Ukraine, which operates in recent years through self-sufficiency and uncertain financial support from central and regional authorities. The existing official database of advisors should be restructured in line with the call of the times to reduce the degree of uncertainty in finding a specialist of the desired profile.