Evaluating Farmers’ Access to Agricultural Information: Evidence from Semi-Arid Region of Rajasthan State, India

Ishwar S. Parmar, Peeyush Soni, John Kuwornu () and Krishna R. Salin
Additional contact information
Ishwar S. Parmar: Production (SAP), Al Rawabi Dairy Co. LLC, Al Khawaneej, 50368 Dubai, UAE
Peeyush Soni: Department of Agricultural & Food Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur 721302, India
Krishna R. Salin: Department of Food, Agriculture and Bioresources, School of Environment, Resources and Development, Asian Institute of Technology, Pathum Thani 12120, Thailand

Agriculture, 2019, vol. 9, issue 3, 1-17

Abstract: The rural farmers in western Rajasthan State are uneducated and most of the applications of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) are demonstrated and run in the English Language. The majority of these rural farmers who are illiterates with a very low level of understanding of the English Language find it difficult to take advantage of the availability of ICT to facilitate their access to information for their farm businesses. This study examined the role of ICT in enhancing the farmers’ access to production and marketing information in western Rajasthan State in India. Primary data was collected from 133 farmers consisting of 71 ICT users and 62 Non-ICT users through questionnaire administration. The results of the Analysis of Variance test regarding the farmers’ access to different types of production and marketing information revealed that the user type (i.e., ICT versus Non-ICT user) significantly explains the differences in farmers’ access to the different types of marketing and production information. These results are consistent with the empirical results of the student’s t -test that farmers’ access to different types of production and marketing information from ICT sources is significantly higher than from Non-ICT sources. Consistently, the empirical results of the multiple regressions revealed that the percentage of production and marketing information obtained from ICT sources had positive significant influence on the farmers’ access to marketing and production information; and that the percentage of marketing and production information obtained from Non-ICT sources had negative significant influence on the farmers’ access to marketing and production information. These results suggest that ICT sources of marketing and production information play a crucial role in the farmers’ access to this information for their business operations. The implication is that proper education and training of farmers (especially the female farmers) about the utilization of ICT sources to accelerate access to information is crucial.

Keywords: semi-arid region; adoption of ICT; agricultural information; farmers; education; India (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q1 Q10 Q11 Q12 Q13 Q14 Q15 Q16 Q17 Q18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0472/9/3/60/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0472/9/3/60/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jagris:v:9:y:2019:i:3:p:60-:d:215850

Access Statistics for this article

Agriculture is currently edited by Ms. Leda Xuan

More articles in Agriculture from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().