Constraints faced in use of mobile phones and suggestions given by the farmers of Mirzapur district of Uttar Pradesh

Abstract

In this era of technology, the mobile phone is emerging as a potential Information and Communication technology tool for dissemination of various timely, need-based information to the farmers. The present study was conducted in Mirzapur district of Uttar Pradesh to identify the constraints faced by the farmers in the use of mobile phone services for getting agriculture information and suggestions given by them to overcome those constraints. For this study, 200 farmers were selected randomly from ten villages two blocks namely Madihaon block and Rajgarh Block. The study revealed that difficulty in getting timely, daily and frequently changeable information, lack of competence about Mobile operating, language barrier to operate the mobile services & applications, difficulties to use mobile communication due to low-level education, irrelevant contents were some of the major constraint perceived by the respondents. Therefore, to overcome these problems the study calls for some of the suggestions given by the respondents like, mobile messages should be made available in understandable form, skill gap of farmers in using mobile technology should be removed, well-organized system should be established for low-cost mobile service, mobile services must be farmers friendly, role of different organizations should be identified in popularizing mobile services etc.