ICTs Adoption for Accessing Agricultural Information: Evidence from Indian Agriculture

Abstract

This paper has addressed two research questions, viz. do farm households use ICTs for accessing agriculture-related information? and what are the factors that influence households to choose between ICT and non-ICT sources of information? Limiting the ICTs to widely available sources, viz. radio, television and newspapers, the study has found that only 11.4 per cent of the farm households use at least one source of these ICTs, to access agricultural information. Using NSSO data, the paper has found radio to be a more important source of agricultural information compared to television and newspapers. In terms of farm-size, the large farmers use ICTs more to access agricultural information. The probability of using ICTs to access agricultural information increases with educational level of the household-head and formal training of a member of household engaged in agriculture. The study has emphasized on capacity building of farmers to use ICTs for agricultural development in the country.