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EXTENT OF USE OF INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGIES (ICTs) IN SELECTED CROPS BY THE FARMERS OF GUNTUR DISTRICT IN ANDHRA PRADESH

KrishiKosh

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Title EXTENT OF USE OF INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGIES (ICTs) IN SELECTED CROPS BY THE FARMERS OF GUNTUR DISTRICT IN ANDHRA PRADESH
 
Creator SAMATHA, J
 
Contributor VIJAYABHINANDANA, B
 
Subject planting, developmental stages, sowing, yields, genetics, genotypes, biological phenomena, proteins, pigeonpeas, diseases
INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGIES (ICTs)
 
Description Agriculture continues to be the primary occupation and way of life for more than
half of Indian population even today making single largest contribution to the GDP
accounting for 15.70 per cent of the total. Sustainable prosperity of the farmers and the
agricultural labourers holds the key for improving the overall human resource development
scenario in the country. Though India has achieved self sufficiency in food grain
production, we cannot complacent with the increasing population. There is a need to
increase production and productivity of agriculture. Hence the Indian farmers need to be
updated with the latest knowledge about new techniques of farming, new cultivars, farm
machinery, market and trade situation etc.
The extension personnel of the department of agriculture disseminated the
technologies and messages to the farmers through various extension methods. But these
approaches have not been able to reach majority of the farmers spread across the country as
the ratio between farmer and extension worker is 1000:1. This gap remains a challenge for
extension system even today. To reach 110 million farmers spread over more than 500
districts is an uphill task. Farmers’ needs are much more diversified and the knowledge
required to address them is beyond the capacity of the grass root level extension
functionaries. In this context, Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) plays
an important role in reaching the unreached, supplement and reinforce the extension efforts.
The present study is designed to analyze the extent of use of Information and
Communication Technologies in selected crops by the farmers of Guntur district of Andhra
Pradesh. The selected crops include paddy, cotton and chilli. Ex-post facto research study
was followed. Guntur district of Andhra Pradesh was selected purposively. One mandal for
each crop with highest area of cultivation was selected for the study. Thus a total of three
mandals viz., Bapatla for paddy, Amaravathi for cotton and Veldurthy for chillies were
selected for the study. Four villages from each mandal were selected randomly with a total
twelve villages. For each crop forty farmers were selected by following proportionate
random sampling constituting the total sample size to 120.
Data were collected through Interview schedule, which was subjected for statistical
analysis and interpretation. Findings emerged out of the study are presented as below.
Detailed analysis of profile characteristics of farmers indicated that majority of the
respondents were middle aged with primary schooling education and were having small
land holdings with medium farming experience. Majority of the respondents had medium
information seeking behaviour, socio-politico participation, extension contact, medium in
economic status, scientific orientation and achievement motivation.
The findings of the study indicated that all ICT tools were not used by the farmers.
Only Radio, Television and mobile were used to some extent. Majority of the farmers
(65.83%) belonged to medium category of extent of use of ICTs.
A little less than three fourth (71.67%) of the respondents had moderately
favourable attitude towards ICTs use.
Eight out of eleven independent variables viz., education, farming experience,
information seeking behaviour, extension contact, economic status, achievement
motivation, scientific orientation and innovativeness were positively correlated with extent
of use of ICTs and attitude towards ICTs use. The association was found significant at 1 per
cent level of probability and the remaining variables age, land holding and socio-politico
participation showed non-significant relation with extent of use of ICTs and attitude
towards ICTs use.
The eleven independent variables with the extent of use of ICTs by the farmers
taken on Multiple Linear Regression Analysis gave the R2 (Co-efficient of multiple
determination) value of 0.8943. It indicates that the independent variables put together
contribute 89.43 per cent of the total variation in the extent of use of ICTs by the farmers,
leaving the rest to extraneous factors. The independent variables viz., education, farming
experience, extension contact, economic status of the respondents had contributed
significantly at 0.01 level of probability towards the variation in the extent of use of ICTs.
The eleven independent variables with attitude of farmers towards ICTs use taken
on Multiple Linear Regression Analysis gave the R2 (Co-efficient of multiple
determination) value of 0.8687, which indicates that the independent variables put together
contributed up to 86.87 per cent of the total variation in explaining the attitude towards
ICTs use by the farmers, leaving the rest to extraneous factors. The independent variables
viz., education, farming experience, land holding, economic status of the respondents had
contributed significantly at 0.01 level of probability towards the variation in the attitude
towards ICTs use.
The most important constraints reported by the farmers in utilization of the ICT
tools were lack of awareness of all the ICT tools within the community, failure to
broadcast/ telecast timely information, do not repeat the important programmes followed by
irrelevancy of the programmes to the farmers, timings of broadcast/telecast are not suitable
to the farmers, the information broadcasted/telecasted was not complete and brief, the
recommendations given were not authentic and applicable to all the farmers in that area,
lack of training and getting complete information is very cumbersome.
Suggestions given by the farmers to overcome the problems were create awareness
on the ICT tools within the community by conducting awareness programmes and
campaigns, provide timely information followed by change the timings of the farm
broadcast/telecast to evening, use simple, clear and understandable words, repeat the
highlights of the programme, conduct live in phone programme with progressive farmers
and scientists, localized recommendations should be given, training should be given,
increase the availability of kiosks at village level and complete information should be
provided by the call centres.
 
Date 2016-06-03T10:20:40Z
2016-06-03T10:20:40Z
2011
 
Type Thesis
 
Identifier http://krishikosh.egranth.ac.in/handle/1/66686
 
Language en
 
Relation D9022;
 
Format application/pdf
 
Publisher ACHARYA N. G. RANGA AGRICULTURAL UNIVERSITY