ICTs in Agricultural Practices: Hopes, Utopias and Contradictions

Abstract

The findings from some research studies conducted to ascertain the factors affecting the adoption of Information and Communication technologies for farming decisions suggest that the ICTs might just live up to the expectation of being the harbinger of agricultural growth and better life chances for rural farmers. In the given study, through a series of interviews conducted in the given setting, I have tried to map how ICT resources are perceived in a setting where there is no targeted privately or state run ICT initiative. The case of initiatives which involve deployment of ICTs in monitored settings like the Gyandoot project, run in Dhar by the government of the state of Madhya Pradesh in India or the E-choupal Project run by Indian Tobacco Company (ITC), again in Dhar, has been elaborated upon in various studies. In monitored projects, usually a specific crop is targeted (for example soybean in case of e-choupals). Here, ICTs are used to assist specialized supply chain management. However, in the case of my study, I have tried to look at the penetration of ICTs in the workflow of a sample of farmers, selected randomly from a given village located in one of the districts, in the state of eastern Uttar Pradesh, India. The rationale for the sampling is to assess the diffusion, penetration and implementation of ICTs and the spillover effects (if any) of the telecommunication revolution in India. Agriculture extension and information dissemination in India is governed by the agricultural extension arm of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research is referred to as ‘Krishi Vigyan Kendras’. These centers dispense extension services at the district level and are managed by the State Agricultural Universities. The Krishi Vigyan Kendra in Gorakhpur is affiliated to Acharya Narendra Dev Agricultural University, Faizabad district and is situated at Belipar, Gorakhpur. Through my study, I have tried to study the role of ICT tools such as mobile phones, radios and television in assisting the district level extension services.