Farmer’s Awareness and Use of Different ICT Tools

Information and communication technologies (ICTs) are a broad range of technological tools and resources to create, stockpile, produce value and manage information. Radio and television broadcasting, computer hardware, software services, and electronic media could all be included. ICTs have seen significant changes in recent years and are developing as a significant tool for speeding agricultural growth in a developing country like India. The objective of study was to know awareness and use of different ICT tools by farmers. The study was conducted in village Gudli of Mavli block of Udaipur district of Rajasthan. The information was collected through Participatory Rural Appraisal using interview technique by group and individual contact method. Each farmer was critically interviewed about awareness & use of ICT tools including e-mail, radio, kiosk, computer, mobile etc. For this, the data was collected from 100 farmers. Result revealed that 100 per cent respondents having mobile without internet, were aware about calling from mobile, SMS and memory stick, and were also using them (calling, 82%) (SMS service 68 %). It was observed that 82 per cent respondents answered to all calls. Majority of the respondents (48-88%) were not using e-mail, radio, kiosk & computer. About one third of the respondents i.e. 36-48 per cent knew about accessing different internet sites, office documents & presentations. This is an ICT era, but till today, half of the farming community are suffering from various types of problems due to the gap between ICT and its use without need assessment and participation of farming community although farmers are using mobile phone for calling, gathering and exchange of information, entertainment etc. Now a day it has been observed that farmers are using different ICT tools i.e. mobile, kiosk etc. for gathering information about their crop production, daily wholesale rates in mandi market, information about climate, various crop diseases and other information related to agriculture.