Effectiveness of whatsapp for sharing agricultural information among farmers of Himachal Pradesh

Abstract

Social media tools such as whatsapp offer new form of disseminating farm extension information. Empirical studies on its specific utilisation for agricultural information are currently lacking. Present study attempted to evaluate effectiveness of whatsapp to bring change in attitude about sharing agricultural information among farmers, in eight districts of Himachal Pradesh. Pre and post intervention (whatsapp group was created and relevant information was shared for a period of six months) data were collected on randomly selected 96 respondents, through personal interview on pre-tested interview schedule. Results revealed that most of the whatsapp user farmers were young, educated, male respondents owning crossbred cows. Purposively driven whatsapp use for sharing agricultural information under the study led to significant level of favourable attitude among users. Correlation analysis suggested perceived ease of use, usefulness, previous internet/social media use in agriculture, number of posts shared were factors significantly related to favourable attitude towards use of whatsapp application. Regression analysis further showed that gender, number of posts shared and perceived usefulness of whatsapp were main contributing factors in attitude towards its use in agriculture.