Farmers’ Social Network Ascribed to Mobile Phone Agro-Advisory Services of m4agriNEI in Meghalaya, India

Abstract

Information related to farm practices is a crucial input for critical decision making by farmers. Social Network Analysis, an innovative analytical tool which provides excellent scope to analyse complex networking system has been applied in the study to explore the invisible nature of communication networks between mobile based Agro-Advisory Services (AAS) & farmers and to study the flow of information from farmers to farmers of Umsning block, Ri-Bhoi district of Meghalaya. The social networks of farmers were based on three domains - Crop Production, Crop Protection and Animal Husbandry. Findings reveal that the social network of Crop Production domain and Crop Protection domain is clearly sparse in nature with fragmented components of about 8 and 11 while the social network of Animal Husbandry domain was tightly knit with only two components. The Network Centralization Index values of the three domains were prominently high, implying that the farmers relied on AAS of m4agriNEI.