Situational analysis on use of ICT in agriculture and allied sectors by gender

Abstract

Abstract: India is mainly an agrarian country with about 70 per cent rural population earning their livelihood from agriculture sector. Indian government has taken up many flagship programmes for doubling the farmers’ income by 2020. Role of extension machinery to percolate down the modern cultivation practices, processing as well as marketing intelligence is very much important in achieving the targeted goal. Information and Communication Technology (ICT) may play a major role as one of the extension machineries in this regard. For women the world over, information and communication technologies (ICT) can be leveraged for personal security, better access to education and jobs, financial inclusion or to access basic healthcare information. But these benefits are not accessed due to several factors, including affordability, relevant content, skills and security (ICC report, 2017). For these reasons United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goal-5 aims to achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls and also calls for enhanced use of enabling technology – ICTs in particular – to promote the empowerment of women. Keeping this in view, a study was undertaken to conduct the situational analysis of rural people by gender in terms of ownership, availability, knowledge and use of ICT. One hundred rural men and one hundred rural women were selected randomly from five villages of Jorhat district of Assam and the data revealed that Television was available for 70% rural women and 73% rural men, but accessibility was almost half for rural women (59%) than rural men (100%). All the male respondents owned own mobile phone, while, 72 per cent female respondents owned mobile phone. 82% rural women and 43.30% rural men were aware about the call facilities of mobile phone but its use was restricted to only 38.70% rural women. It was revealed that 76.38% and 80.00% rural women and rural men respectively could read the SMS they receive in their mobile. 70% rural women and all the rural men used to answer all the calls whereas remaining respondents used to answer only known calls. ICT tools were mainly used for family connectivity and social networking. 90 % rural women watched television only for entertainment and 100% rural men used it for social welfare. The present study concludes that a strategic programme may be launched categorically to teach the rural poor on proper use of ICT depending upon the resource availability in that particular locality, should make them aware off different apps and programmes running on different ICT tools, in order to keep them in touch with recent developments of agricultural sector which in turn will lead them for increasing farm income.