Chauhan, J. K.Oinam, Termaric2023-02-022023-02-022019-12https://krishikosh.egranth.ac.in/handle/1/5810193102Right information in right time at right place to right farmer is sine-quo-non for successful farming. Mobile phones being one of the vibrant and reliable Information and Communication Technology (ICT) gadgets promise to bridge the information gap of the farming population. Mobile phones have significantly reduced communication and information costs for the rural poor in developing countries. With these backdrops, the study was conducted with the following research objectives viz., (1) To ascertain agricultural information seeking behaviour of tribal rural youth, (2) To determine the extent of mobile phone application by tribal rural youth in farming, and (3) To examine factors limiting application of mobile phones in farming and advocate suggestive measures to overcome the same. The research was carried out in six districts of Meghalaya viz., Ri-bhoi, East-Khasi Hills, West-Khasi Hills, West-Jaintia Hills, West- Garo Hills and South-West Garo Hills. A total sample size of 240 respondents were finalized and from 12 villages inter alia of 2 villages from each identified district. Two indices namely ‘Standard Information Seeking Behaviour Index’ (SISBI) and ‘Standard Mobile Phone Use Index’ (SMPUI) had been developed during the study. The study unveiled that maximum percentage (29.58%) of respondent were matriculate and nearly 2/5th of respondents had medium ‘Social Participation’. Further stances on attributes of respondents could revealed that majority of them had medium level of ‘Mass Media Exposure’–(70.83%), ‘Cosmopoliteness’–(67.08%), ‘Decision Making’– (71.67%), ‘Perceived Ease of Use’–(68.75%), ‘Perceived Usefulness’–(75.42%), ‘Mobile Phone Service Reliability’–(67.08%), and ‘Annual Income’ in range of ` 33,750 – 1,44,000/- – (78.75%). Standard Information Seeking Behaviour Index (SISBI) revealed that the most viable source used by the respondents to seek agriculture related information was through friends with 84.38 SISBI, trailed very closely by neighbours with 83.44 SISBI. Standard Mobile Phone Use Index (SMPUI) revealed that mobile phone applications are being primarily used to determine the market price of agricultural goods and commodities from time to time with 57.81 SMPUI. With the Cox & Snell R2 and the Nagelkerke R2 respective values of 0.638 and 0.745, the Multinomial Logistic Regression (MLR) in the study with respect to the dependent variable namely, ‘Information Seeking Behaviour’ could revealed that between 63.8% to 74.5% of the variability was explained by set of 7 predictor variables viz., ‘Agricultural Land Holding’, ‘Mass Media Exposure’, ‘Cosmopoliteness’, ‘Social Participation’, ‘Decision Making’, ‘Perceived Usefulness’ and ‘Education’. Similarly, with the Cox & Snell R2 and the Nagelkerke R2 respective values of 0.492 and 0.571, the MLR in the study with respect to the dependent variable namely, ‘Extent of Mobile Phone Application’ could revealed that between 49.2% to 57.1% of the variability was explained by set of 9 predictor variables viz., ‘Agricultural Land Holding’, ‘Annual Income’, ‘Decision Making’, ‘Perceived Ease of Use’, ‘Mobile Phone Service Reliability’, ‘Perceived Usefulness’, ‘Money Spent on Mobile Phone’, ‘Gender’ and ‘Education.’ On performing Paired Comparison, 60.20% of the respondents expressed the most stark constraint was ‘Incomplete Information on Farming.’ The study recommends that need and evidence based agro-advisory services alongside combination of web-based ‘Internet of Things’ on agriculture and allied enterprises should be enhanced and promoted to retain rural youth in agriculture.EnglishInformation And Communicaton Technologies (ICTs) Rural RadioInformation needsThesis