Utilization of ICTs in Agricultural Extension Services of Bangladesh

Information and Communication Technology (ICT) has become the most influential means of disseminating information required by the people globally. Bangladesh has made remarkable progress to effectively start using ICT for agricultural extension services. Therefore, the present study was carried out to explore the extent of ICT's utilization by the field level extension personnel under agricultural extension service delivery system. A sample of 110 Sub Assistant Agriculture Officers (SAAOs), were selected as respondents from five upazilas of Manikganj district of Bangladesh following proportionate random sampling technique. Data were collected through face to face interview, case study and Focus Group Discussion (FGD) methods. Utilization level of ICTs was measured considering two aspects i) collecting information and ii) providing services. Statistics like range, mean, standard deviation, Chi-square and correlation analysis were used. Findings revealed that a total of 52.7 percent and 97.27 percent respondents used mobile phone regularly for collecting information and providing services, respectively. Considering the two perspectives, ICT was the most utilized for collecting information followed by providing service by the respondents. Among different ICT tools, mobile phone was highly used by the respondents both for official (93.64%) and personal purpose (100%). Overall utilization of ICT was very low. Only 12.7 percent and 5.5 percent respondents highly utilized ICTs for collecting information and providing services respectively. A total of 48.2 percent and 79 percent respondents had low level of utilization of ICTs for collecting information and providing service respectively. Positive and significant relationship was found between training exposure, source of information use by the respondent, job satisfaction and perception on ICT, with their utilization of ICT in agricultural extension services. As the respondents are solely depending on mobile, so other modern mobile based technology could be easily acceptable for them and it could be a vital solution for proper utilization of ICT in agricultural extension service.