Awareness, Accessibility and Utilisation Pattern of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Projects by Fafmers of Belgaum District
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Date
2013
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Publisher
UAS, Dharwad
Abstract
This study was conducted in the year 2012-13 to elicit the knowledge and utilisation
pattern of ICT projects by the farmers of Belgaum district. Among the various ICT projects in
operation, four projects were selected for the study namely, Kisan Call Centre (KCC), e-
Choupal, Krishi Marata Vahini and Raith Mitra Kendra’s web portal. A sample of 140
respondents was selected randomly and was personally interviewed using pretested schedule.
It was revealed that most of the respondents had high knowledge of KCC (40.00%),
followed by medium knowledge of e-Choupal (39.29%) and Krishi Marata Vahini (37.14%)
but low knowledge of Raith Mitra Kendra (30.71%). Most of farmers with high knowledge of
all four ICT projects were young (53.33%) followed by middle age (22.03%) and old farmers
(15.69%).
It was also observed that 65.71 per cent of respondents were utilising information
services of KCC, 61.43 per cent and 55.71 per cent of them were utilising services of Krishi
Marata Vahini and e-Choupal, respectively. Only, 35.71 per cent of respondents were
utilising Raith Mitra Kendra’s web portal for agriculture related information. Most of the
farmers were utilising Krishi Marata Vahini (61.43%), e-Choupal (46.43%) for information
regarding market prices, KCC (47.86%) and Raita Mitra Kendra (32.14%) for information
regarding crop protection.
Lack of adequate skills to use ICTs (73.57%) and lack of proper infrastructure
(61.43%) were the major constraints in effective utilisation of ICT projects by farmers.
Majority of the farmers had suggested for providing them training in operating ICT tools
(74.29%), providing adequate knowledge of various ICTs projects (67.86%) and linking ICT
projects with other services (61.43%).