Empowering Farmers through ICT: Unveiling Access and Competency Gaps and Associated Factors in Puri District, Odisha, India

In developing country like India on one hand there are plethora of ICT initiatives operational across various areas, but on the other the persistent issues of crop loss, lack of market, vulnerability of small holder farmers etc. continues to prevail. These persistent situations do give rise to basic questions that in spite of large-scale ICT initiatives, whether farmers have access to these ICT? If they have access, are they competent in using the ICT? There could be multiple factors affecting the access and competency of farmers rendering most of the ICT initiative as ineffective. Previous researches provide limited understating of how socio-economic factors such as education levels, wealth status, and diversification of income sources influence farmers' ability to effectively utilize ICT tools. Additionally, there are limited studies examining the role of local extension services, such as those provided by KVKs, in bridging the ICT access and competency gap, particularly among smallholder farmers in vulnerable regions. Based on these the study was conducted in Puri district of Odisha on119 farmers. The study reports that the respondent farmers in the area were majorly smallholders and have been marred by agriculture issues like crop failures, pest attacks and market failure. The study examined the socio-economic profiles of these farmers and tries to relate it with the ICT competency levels and information access levels of the farmers. The results from the study shows that the major factors affecting competency and access of information included the level of education of the farmers, Wealth ranks and also the presence of non-farm income source. The local extension workers from KVK, Puri also played a vital role in improving the access and competency level.