Application of Agricultural Information Accessed Through Mobile

Mobile has emerged as the technology whose spread has surpassed all predictions and records. After its successful use in trade, commerce and banking, it is applied in governance and agricultural extension. A number of initiatives like Kisan Call Centre (Toll free number-18001801551), Mobile portal (http://www.mkisan.gov.in), Voice SMS (http://www.iksl.net) has been taken to provide mobile-based services to the farmers. All these initiatives aim at empowering the farmers through agricultural information which the farmers are expected to apply for increasing productivity and profitability. A study was conducted in Jharkhand state of India to ascertain the application of agricultural information accessed through mobile. Data were collected from the purposively selected districts, one each from three agro- climatic zones of Jharkhand on the criteria of mobile user base. The findings revealed satisfactory level of information application. The selected independent variables viz., family education, social participation, extension contact, mass media and IT exposure, attitude towards mobile, annual agricultural income, information needs, knowledge about mobile feature, level of aspiration about mobile and monthly expenditure on mobile service were found positively and significantly correlated with information application at 1 per cent level of probability. Age was found negatively and significantly correlated at 1 per cent level of probability. However, innovation proneness was found positively and significantly correlated at 5 per cent level of probability. The selected independent variables could explain the variability upto 41.6 per cent whereas the variable information needs alone contributed upto 34.6 per cent. Hence, intervention like awareness programme should be undertaken so that felt needs could be expressed and unfelt needs could be converted into felt needs. Extension organizations need to provide more specific and personalized advice.