PERCEIVED IMPORTANCE OF DIFFERENT ICT ENABLERS FOR RECEIVING FARM INFORMATION

Abstract

The main purpose of the study was to determine the perceived importance of ICT enablers used by the farmers for receiving farm information. Data were collected from the farmers of Dinajpur Sadar, Chirirbandar and Biral Upazila of Dinajpur district during 20 February to 20 March, 2018. The sample size of the study was 102 farmers directly or indirectly involved with Agriculture Information and Communication Centers (AICCs) of DAE and it was drawn from a population of 340 using random sampling technique. For collecting data structured interview schedule were used. The perceived importance of ICT enablers was the focus issue of this study and it was measured considering ten ICT enablers and nine farm related information. A four-point rating scale was used to measure the importance is – “not important at all”, “somewhat important”, “important” and “very important” with a score of 1, 2, 3 and 4, respectively. The overall perceived importance score could range from 90 to 360. The selected characteristics of the farmers are: age, level of education, family size, farming experience, annual family income, ICT training received, use of ICT enablers in agricultural activities, frequency of use of ICT enablers and ease of use of ICT enablers. Each of the selected characteristics was discussed and analyzed following standard procedure. Correlation test was used to ascertain the relationships between the focus issues and the selected characteristics. It was found that 74.5 percent of the farmers perceived that the ICT enablers was medium important, followed by 13.7 percent of farmers perceived as low important and 11.8 percent of farmers perceived as highly important. The mobile phone ranked top most as perceived important ICT enabler by the farmers for receiving farm information followed by television and radio. Again, farmers perceived the “recent information on agriculture” is most important for receiving from different ICT enablers followed by “information on market of agricultural products” and “get information on new varieties”. Farmers' characteristics such as age, level of education, farming experience, ICT training received, Use of ICT enablers in agricultural activities and frequency of use had significant positive relationship with the perceived importance of ICT enablers; while family size, annual family income and ease of use of ICT enablers had no significant relationship with perceived importance of ICT enablers by the farmers.