Proceedings of the 21st International Academic Conference, Miami

ATTITUDE OF FARMERS ABOUT USE OF ICT TOOLS IN FARM COMMUNICATION

RAGHUPRASAD KODAGAVALLIHATTI PALAIAH, SHANABHOGA MAHANTHESH BHARATESH, SHIVANI DECHAMMA, DEVARAJ K

Abstract:

Knowledge is an increasingly significant factor of production in modern agriculture. Information and communication Technology (ICT) generated lot of hopes to disseminate updated information to the farming community, overcoming the barriers of distance, socio-economic status, gender etc. ICTs can accelerate agricultural development by facilitating knowledge management. Several ICT initiatives in rural India and implementation of ICTs in agriculture has been proposed and developed in the recent decades. though there are so many ICT tools available in villages still many of the farmers are not making use of these tools for obtaining timely information due to physical, social and psychological barriers. Especially, attitude of the farmers plays a significant role in accepting and using these tools. since these initiatives are new to their social system and establish rare contact with the external world. Hence, the study was conducted in Karnataka state to know the attitude of farmers about ICT tools using for farm communication. The findings of the study revealed that more than two-fifth of the farmers had favorable attitude towards ICT tools followed by least favorable attitude and most favorable attitude towards ICT tools. Majority of the respondents had knowledge about TV and mobile which are providing agricultural information but majority of the respondents didn’t know regarding internet, agricultural DVDs, social media and interactive conferencing. Hence, there is need to educate the farmers regarding ICT tools like internet, conferencing and agricultural DVDs by means of providing training and make availability of these ICT tools in rural areas.

Keywords: Attitude, ICT, DVDs, social media, internet

DOI: 10.20472/IAC.2016.021.020

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