Factors associated with access of agricultural information by the farmers

Abstract

Access of agricultural information is influenced by social, personal, psychological and economic factors. These led to plan and conduct a study on factors associated with access of agricultural information by the farmers. The findings revealed that family education, computer literacy extension contact, exposure to mass media and IT, innovation proneness, attitude towards IT, and agricultural information needs were found positively and significantly correlated with agricultural information access at 1% level of probability, as depicted by the correlation coefficient value (r) of 0.527, 0.165, 0.371, 0.458, 0.208, 0.471 and 0.642, respectively. Annual agricultural income was found to have positive and significant correlation at 5% level of probability. All the selected variables could explain the variability up to 61.50%. The variables viz. agricultural information needs, extension contact, attitude towards IT, family education and exposure to mass media and IT explained the variability by 61.30% of which information needs alone contributed to the tune of 41.30%. Hence, an appropriate extension strategy could be adopted so that unfelt needs of the farmers get converted into felt needs for enhanced information access by the farmers.