Farmers view on ICT (Information and Communication Technology) Adoption Challenges in India

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Sandeep Kumar Vats
Dr. Sanjeev Kumar Sharma

Abstract

Adoption of Information Communication Technology (ICT) has already proven its relevance for most of the sectors in the economy. Sectors like education, health care, banking, transportation, entertainment, commerce, or the industries in general have already been realizing the benefits of ICT. Agriculture, particularly in India is among the outliers, and this sector is still lagging in ICT adoption with significant margins. These lower levels of ICT adoption are proving to be a missing opportunity for the Indian farmers. Various studies have already been done on this subject and these studies are pointing towards digital literacy, illiteracy in general, lack of technological infrastructure and cost of technology etc. as the key reasons for the limited adoption of ICT in agriculture. In the recent years, scenario has changed drastically due to the significant mobile phone adoption in India, with the extended communication networks and due to other digital adoptions like digital payment systems etc. Now, common man, including population in remote rural areas have started using mobile phones and their digital literacy profile is improving. So, there is an urgent need to understand the ICT adoption challenges in view of recent digital transformation in India so that the challenges for ICT adoption can be re-evaluated. This will help with the identification of the steps to mitigate these challenges. As some of the farmers have already started interacting with ICT resources in one, or the other form. So, they should be in a good position to point towards the real ICT adoption challenges. In this study, a survey will be conducted with the farmers to understand their opinion around the challenges in ICT adoption. This paper will discuss the results of this survey and the outcome will help identifying the corrective steps to mitigate these challenges. Also, this study will provide inputs for the future studies on the subject.

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