Stakeholders’ perception about content and design of rice knowledge management portal (RKMP)

Abstract

Information and communication technology (ICT) fasten the farmers decision-making processes and growing their purview for providing timely, accurate, relevant information to the farmers. In India an initiatives focussing on rice farmers was developed namely, Rice knowledge Management Portal (RKMP) by Indian institute of Rice Research(IIRR) Hyderabad, to accumulate diversified information and disseminated properly to the stakeholders. The study was conducted in purposively selected districts of Nalgonda in Telanagan and West Godavari in Andhra Pradesh state, with aim to assess utility, perception and satisfaction of information provided by RKMP. From district 40 farmers and 30 scientists and extension personnel were selected using multistage random sampling technique, so total 140 respondents were selected. Perception about content of the portal revealed that it is related to improved cultivation practices as strongly perceived by majority of farmers, 57 per cent of scientists strongly perceived that it is in simple language and 70 per cent of extension personnel perceived that it is free of spelling errors. Further, Perception about design of portal revealed that 65 per cent farmers strongly perceived that videos-length were appropriate. 60 per cent scientists strongly perceived that speed of uploading and downloading, 56 per cent extension personnel strongly perceived that links were accessible. This study provides guiding for other crops to initiate strategies and policies for ICT oriented agricultural information packages; motivate stakeholders to apply at their farms for sustainable agriculture and development.