Farmers’ Access to ICT Based Media in Receiving Farm Information: A Grassroots Level Study from Bangladesh

Abstract

Information is one of the vital factors of production while ICT to provide efficient and effective information. Thus, the study was undertaken mainly to determine farmers’ extent of access to ICT based media in receiving agricultural information. Besides, important factors associated with farmers’ extent of access to ICT based media were also explored. The study was conducted at Fulbaria upazila (sub-district) under Mymensingh district in Bangladesh. Eighty (80) farmers were interviewed using structured questionnaire to collect the data. Both descriptive and inferential statistical analysis were used to interpret the trend and tendencies of collected data. The findings of the study revealed that the majority (81.2 percent) of the respondents had low access to ICT while only 3.8 percent had medium access and 15.0 percent of them having no access to ICT based media. The step-wise multiple regression results explored that availability of ICTs, knowledge on ICT and training received on ICTs were identified as influential factors in case of increasing the extent of farmers’ access to ICT based media. Lack of operational knowledge of computer, poor level of education, lack of training facilities on ICT, insufficient numbers of ICT centre, poor knowledge on the availability of ICT based facilities, lack of personal interest were identified as the major constraints faced by the farmers to access to ICTs based media.