Assessment of Level of Digitization of Farmers and Extent of Digital Divide in Farm Information Delivery, Indian Journal of Extension Education

Abstract

India is the world's largest sourcing destination for the information technology (IT) industry, accounting for approximately 67 Per cent of the US$124– 130 billion markets (IBEF, 2017) but, the expected outcome from such a positive growth is dismal. Again, the benefit of accessing and using digital media for economic gain is very unevenly distributed which can be termed as “digital divide”. So, the present study was conducted aiming at delineating the extent of digital divide between farmers of digitally well performing state and digitally weaker state in the context of farm information delivery. For doing so, state of Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh were selected purposively with due literature exploration. The districts with basic digital infrastructure were selected for study so that infrastructure will not remain as the only factor behind digital deprivation. Three villages from each district were selected randomly with a sample size of twenty from each village making sixty farmers per district and one hundred twenty farmers as total sample size. The interview schedule was developed for the study. Personal and focus group discussion methods were used as tools for data collection. To measure the digital divide an index of digitization was developed using standard methodologies. Upon analysis, it was found that there was a significant difference in the mean ownership of ICTs access to ICT tools and services digital literacy (14.6 * *) frequency of use and quality of use of ICT tool and technologies between farmers of Nashik and Varanasi. The digitization index for farmers of Nashik (Mean=0.61) were significantly higher than farmers of Varanasi (Mean=0.33) and there exists a significant difference in level of digitization and thus, digital divide. The Gini's coefficient of digital inequality suggested that in Nashik, the farmers were more unequal in terms of ownership (0.21) and frequency of use (0.30) but for Varanasi, it was found that there present a higher inequality in all components i.e.ownership (0.28), access to ICTtools and services (0.26), digital literacy (0.33), frequency of ICTuse (0.44) and quality of ICTuse (0.38). This study can be useful for researchers and policy makers delineating the factors behind digital divide and thus can help to choose best fit strategy for the region.