Use of Information and Communication Technology by Farmers to Access Agricultural Information in Jorhat District of Assam, India

Abstract

The benefits of the green revolution greatly improved agricultural productivity. However, there is a demonstrable need for a new revolution that will bring lower prices for consumers (through reduced waste and more-efficient supply chain management), contribute to agriculture, and incentivize farmers (for example, through higher income) to increase their production. ICT is one of these solutions, and has recently unleashed incredible potential to improve agriculture in developing countries like India. Information and communication have always mattered in agriculture. Ever since people have grown crops, raised livestock, and caught fish, they have sought information from one another. Thus the important contribution made by ICT provides the necessary basis and justification for the present research study on “Use of Information and Communication Technology by farmers to access agricultural Information in Jorhat District of Assam with following objectives i) To study the personal and socio-economic characteristic of farmers, ii) To find out the type of ICT used by farmers to access agricultural information and iii) To determine the purpose of using ICT by the farmers. The present study was carried out in Jorhat districts of Assam, India to find out the use of ICT by farmers to access agricultural information. For the study two blocks namely Jorhat development block and North west development block were selected randomly. From each block two villages, total four villages were selected randomly. Then, from each village twenty five (25) farmers were selected randomly thus altogether 100 farmers were selected for the present study. Data was collected personally by interview method. The findings revealed that 62.00 per cent of farmers were from the medium socio-economic status group, the majority of farmers (51.00%) used radio to get agricultural information and three main purposes in seeking agriculture information using ICT are information of new technology, market information and disease and pest control measures. So, it can be concluded that that radio was used by majority of farmers. Radio as traditional ICT is still seen as highly effective method of information dissemination and it is the most widely used means of mass communication.