Extent of Use of ICT Tools by Hill Farmers and Associated Social Factors

Abstract

Hill farmers are the practitioners of complex, diverse and risk-prone agriculture. They are also facing lack of information dissemination channels which causes a huge communication gap in hills. The lack of information dissemination channels in hills is highly attributed to the geographical disadvantages of distantly located hamlets and fragmented household of hills. ICT has a significant role to bridge the gap of information dissemination in hills. In the present study an attempt has been made to delineate the extent of use of ICT tools by hill farmers and the associated social factors which influence the extent of use of ICT tools by the farmers. The study was conducted in Mahatgaon cluster of Hawalbagh block in Almora district, Uttarakhand taking a random sample of 100 farmers. The data was collected by a pre-tested structured interview schedule through personal interview method. The study revealed that majority of farmers often used mobile phone (98%) followed by TV (97%), telephone (60%), radio (57%) and internet (49%) as ICT tools. The ranking of the ICT tools used by the respondents was also done on the basis of MWS. It was found that mobile was in the first rank followed by television and radio. Internet was found to be in the last rank as far the usage is concerned. Out of total 14 independent variables studied, it was identified that factors viz. annual income, no. of crops cultivated, herd size, social participation, extension contact, mass media exposure and innovativeness were highly associated with the extent of ICT usage at 1% level of significance whereas factors viz. education, family size, landholding, training attended were associated with the extent of ICT usage at 5% level of significance.