A critical analysis of e-learning agricultural technical capacity for rural development: lessons from Pakistan

Abstract

Undoubtedly, high demands from food from the world-wide growing population are impacting the environment and putting many pressures on agricultural productivity. As advanced information systems and Internet technologies are adopted in Agriculture, enormous farming data, such as agricultural information, capacity buildings, training, marketing demands, and land uses, can be collected, analyzed, and processed for assisting farmers in making appropriate decisions and obtaining higher profits. e-Learning technologies have clearly emerged as development poles for rural development and food security through growths for access to knowledge and exchange through advance agricultural communication tools. A multistage random sampling technique was used by 300 selected e-Learning users from rural areas with a simple linear regression model via SPSS. A comprehensive analysis is conducted from the aspects of interoperability, scalability, accessibility, usability, etc. Based on the evaluation result, upcoming challenges are detected and summarized, suggesting the development trends and demonstrating potential improvements for future research. One of the main obstacles that farmers were not aware and training of technical information flows in rural development. Therefore, ICTs services and applications have been highly significant for agricultural technical capacity in rural development. Government should establish technology facilitating condition via information hub center to boost up and sustainable rural development.