Use of E-agriculture in Irrigated Rice Based Cropping System in Odisha

Abstract

Information is a valuable input through which farmers adopt new technologies to enhance production and make the farming more profitable. The application of e-agriculture/ ICT enabled introduction offers wider possibilities by strengthening transfer of new, proven and viable technologies from research through extension system to the end users. The present study entitled “ Use of e-agriculture in irrigated rice based cropping system in Odisha”  with specific objectives i)Analyzing the socio-economic profile of the respondent farmers ii) assessing the adoption level of e-agriculture tools. This study comes within the purview of survey research mainly of “Ex-post facto” in nature. In the light of the objectives and scope of the study decision on the techniques of investigation. The study was conducted during 2024 in Ganjam district of Odisha. The focus of this study was to assess the adoption of e-agriculture tools by the farmers in the irrigated rice based cropping system with a sample size of 90. The response was collected through a pre-tested interview schedule. The data were collected, tabulated and analyzed through relevant statistical tools. It was observed that majority of the respondents (58%) were in old age group category and maximum (98.9%) number of respondents possessed. Only 13.33 per cent had experienced high exposure to extension contacts. The correlation matrix revealed several important relationships among the socio-economic and behavioral characteristics of farmers, especially in the context of adoption of e-agriculture tools; younger farmers are more likely to use digital agricultural technologies than older farmers. The regression coefficient expressed that out of 11 variables, land holding and cosmopoliteness showed positive and significant contribution to increase the adoption level of farmers at 0.05 level of probability.