Role of ICT in Agriculture: Policy Implications

Agriculture is a gigantic sector of the Indian economy as its share to gross domestic product (GDP) is almost 17 per cent. Over 60 per cent of the population adopts agriculture as main occupation. In spite of a large of Indian economy, agriculture is lagging behind many aspects and characterised by poor connectivity and disintegration of market, unreliable and delayed information to the farmers, small land holdings, non adoption or less adoption of improved technology and so on. It has become indispensable to explore various ways to keep our farmers updated about modern technologies and relevant information. The development and timely dissemination of better personalized technologies specific to different agro-climatic conditions, size of land holding, soil type, type of crops and related pests/diseases is the real issue to brazen out ahead for the agricultural scientists/experts. The timely availability of right information and its proper utilisation is indispensable for agriculture. ICT based initiatives can be taken for propagation of information, transfer of technology, procurement of inputs and selling of outputs in a way so that farmers can be benefitted. The timely information and practical solutions of the agricultural problems helps the farmers to adopt good agricultural practices, make better choices of inputs and to plan the cultivation properly.