Digital tools in horizontal spread of agricultural technologies

Abstract

The study titled ‘Digital tools in horizontal spread of agricultural technologies: A scenario analysis in Kerala’ was conducted during the year 2018- 2019 with the objectives; to analyse the use of digital tools in horizontal spread of agricultural technologies among farmers and extension agents, to identify the preference of various digital tools among the respondents with regard to its content and to identify the constraints faced by the respondents. The study consisted of 40 farmers and 10 extension agents each from Kannur, Thrissur and Thiruvanathapuram representing the three zones of Kerala resulting a total of 120 farmers and 30 extension agents. The detailed investigation of profile characters of the farmers pointed out that, majority of the farmers (66.67%) were middle aged and less than half (44.17%) had higher secondary level of education; most (70%) of the farmers had high level of cosmopolitenessa and more than half of the farmers (53.33%) had medium level of attitude towards digital tools. Innovativeness of most of the farmers (56.67%) was observed to be high whereas the computer proficiency of 39.19 per cent of farmers was found to be low. Most (56.67%) of the farmers belonged to below mean category of knowledge about digital tools. Television was the most experienced digital tool used by the farmers. Almost all the farmers had accessibility towards tools such as television, mobile phone, internet, social media, e mail and search engines. All the farmers were found to adopt mobile phone and social media. Analysis on the profile characteristics of the extension agents revealed that most (53.33%) of the extension agents were middle aged and 43.33 per cent of the extension agents had degree qualification. Television was the most experienced tool by the extension agents. Most (70%) of the extension agents had high level of attitude and majority (86.67%) had high level of innovativeness. The use of digital tools was found to be most effective for manures and fertilizers application (50%) and plant protection measures (46.67%). Tools like television, mobile phone, internet, social media, e mail, search engines, agricultural websites, mobile agricultural applications and e newspapers were accessible to all extension agents. The results of the study revealed that all farmers were aware about television, mobile phone and social media. Majority of the farmers preferred to use mobile phones (88.33%) followed by social media (64.17%). Mobile phone was found to be the tool mostly used for production purpose by 39.17 per cent farmers. Mobile phone was used by 58.33 per cent of the farmers for plant protection purpose and social media was mostly (82.50%) used for marketing purpose. All extension agents were aware about tools like television, mobile phone, internet, social media, e mail and search engines. Preference was found to be higher for mobile phone (100%) and social media (86.67%) by extension agents. Social media was used mostly by the extension agents for production (83.33%), protection (93.33%) and marketing purposes (36.67%). Correlation between awareness and user preference on age was found to be negatively correlated at one per cent significance for farmers and five per cent significance for extension agents. Awareness and preference of farmers were positively correlated with education, cosmopoliteness, attitude, innovativeness, computer proficiency and accessibility with one per cent significance. Adoption was positively correlated with awareness at one per cent level of significance and preference at five per cent significance. For extension agents awareness and preference were positively correlated with education, attitude and effectiveness at one per cent significance. Accessibility was positively correlated with awareness at one per cent significance and preference at five per cent level of significance. The study revealed that both the farmers and extension agents preferred to use mobile phone and social media as a general digital tool. The use of digital tools by farmers was mainly for marketing purposes whereas extension agents were more inclined towards the crop protection purposes. Lack of contents related to agriculture and lack of training programmes were the major constraints identified. From the findings of this study it can be concluded that there is significant role for digital technologies in the development of agricultural sector in Kerala which is not utilized at the fullest. Proper training programmes for farmers and extension agents with proper content updates and tapping the opportunities of digital tools for marketing can benefit the agricultural sectors in various dimensions.