CONSTRAINTS FACED BY FARMERS IN SAURASHTRA REGION IN USING SMART PHONES FOR AVAILING AGRICULTURAL INFORMATION

Abstract

The present era is a 'Smart Phone Era'. The mobile phone became an inevitable gadget for everyone and also for farmers to know the latest agricultural technology. But there were many problems which hinder the maximum use of smart phone to get the scientific information of agricultural field. Keeping this in view, the present study was undertaken to identify the constraints faced by farmers in the use of smart phone for agricultural information. This study was undertaken in Porbandar district of Gujarat state. 120 farmers who had minimum three years' experience in the use of smart phone were selected from 12 randomly selected villages of Porbandar district. Results indicated that, unavailability/fluctuation of network connectivity in rural area is the major constraint in the use of smart phone. Some other important constraints were; lack of technical know-how to operate smart phone properly, language barrier i.e. majority of information is available in English not in vernacular language and the cost of smart mobile phones is high. The network service provider should give priority for strong network connectivity in rural areas, farmers should be trained to improve their smart phone use efficiency, agricultural information should be available in local/vernacular language and the government should provide smart phones at low cost to farmers were crucial suggestions given by the respondents to overcome the constraints faced by farmers in the use of smart phone for agricultural information.