The role of ICT and mass media in agriculture knowledge dissemination to the farmers in their own language to educate them in farm technology, animal husbandry, climatology, agronomy, plant disease management, post-harvest management, warning for flood/cyclone etc. is very important. The farmers living in the remote areas of the developing countries with little computer literacy, need the access to farming and allied technology to enhance food production, vegetable and fruit yield, livestock production. He needs information about improved variety of seed, fertilizer, and a market for sale of the products. Various models for using the technology to provide the farmers living in rural areas, the information right from the decision on the crop to be planted and ending with the sale of produce at the wholesale market have been used. Video based training assisted with facilitator is found most effective in motivating farmers to adopt new agricultural practices for about one-tenth of the cost of traditional extension systems. Farmer's feedback shows that viewing a practice on a video while being told about it by a facilitator improves the effectiveness of video in inspiring changes in rural behavior.
Implementation[edit | edit source]
Knowledge-Base of relevant content on various themes such as farm technology, animal husbandry, climatology, agronomy, plant disease management, post-harvest management, market price, warning for flood/cyclone etc. is created using subject experts and stored in Digital archives/library in the form of video/audio/multimedia with their metadata. The audio only is considered important since it can be listened to with availability of lower internet speed /bandwidth.
A Community Radio station with a low power FM transmitter is used to relay the audio information and provide the answer to the farmer's query through phone-in program.
The video is disseminated using interactive Web, video-conferencing, and playing video in rural areas.
Conclusion[edit | edit source]
The education and training of farming community using video, ICT and mass media have been very well received and it is an effective mode of communication with the farming community. The continued interest of the farming community in these videos proves that mass media and ICT penetration make the farming community more productive. The use of smartphone and cloud technology makes the system more productive.
