Utilization pattern of mobile phone technology (Smartphone) among the farmers of Nagaur district in Rajasthan

Abstract

Now-a-days, one of the most important emerging tools of ICT is the mobile phones with a remarkable growth during last decade. Mobile phone technologies have provided a good platform for farmers to share their knowledge and information among each other in time such as weather information, crop and variety selection, fertilizer and irrigation management, disease and pest management, market prices of the product and on-going government programmes. Keeping this in view, a study was conducted assess the utilization pattern of mobile phones for sharing agricultural information among farmers in Merta block of Nagaur district of Rajasthan. A total of 110 respondents were selected for the study. This study has shown that a majority (83.63%) of the farmer used call to retailor than call to relative farmer (80%), internet user (29.09) and perceived as most information on weedicide, pesticide and disease control (89.09%) through mobile phones. The correlation studies indicated a significant association between educations, with extension agency contact and mass media of the farmer. The analysis showed that the poor connectivity, economic problem, high cost internet services and lack of updated information were some of the problems reported by the respondents.