India (Southern, Asia), agricultural, information, cell phones, extension systems, advisory services, technology, To achieve gainful development in agriculture to ensure food security in the north-eastern Himalayan region of India, an initiative was taken to develop mobile phone based agro-advisory system with the objective to empower the farmers by providing right information at right time through Information and Communication Technol- ogy mediated extension approach. 2000 farmers and farm women were selected as beneficiaries through snowball sampling method based on certain criteria. The major features of the system to deliver the farm advices (Pull Based) and information services (Push Based) through toll free Interactive Voice Response System (IVRS), Smart Phone Application, Mobile phone and Web based agriculture advisory system. It was found that on an average almost 200 advisories were provided every month, which even shoot up to almost 300 calls per month in the peak Kharif seasons as bulk of the advisories were provided during the months of May to November as most number of calls from the farmers came during the period. Majority of the advisories were provided on fishery management practices (17.32%), source of seed (9.95%), livestock management (9.18%), disease and pest management of crops (8.75%), training information (9.35%), rural development schemes (7.76%) etc. Moreover, the inclusion of need based train- ing component and convergence with different extension functionaries helped to develop an ICT based Stakeholder Interface (Experts-Line Departments-Agripreneurs-Farmers) in the field of agriculture in the region. This alternate extension system also helped to develop better rapport with the farmers and can be replicated in other hilly region of the world.
Ahmad, Munir (author), Davidson, Andrew P. (author), and Ali, Tanvir (author)
Format:
Proceedings
Publication Date:
2000-03-29
Published:
Pakistan: Association for International Agricultural and Extension Education
Location:
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 133 Document Number: C20236
Notes:
Burton Swanson Collection, In section D of the "2000 conference proceedings: Association for International Agricultural and Extension Education", 16th Annual Conference, March 29th-April 1st, 2000, Arlington, Virginia, USA
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 167 Document Number: C27882
Notes:
Presented at the 24th annual conference of the Association for International Agricultural and Extension Education (AIAEE) at EARTH University, Costa Rica, March 9-15, 2008. 12 pages.
Moumouni, Ismail M. (author) and Labarthe, Pierre (author)
Format:
Paper
Publication Date:
2008-03-09
Published:
International
Location:
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 167 Document Number: C27875
Notes:
Presented at the 24th annual conference of the Association for International Agricultural and Extension Education (AIAEE) at EARTH University, Costa Rica, March 9-15, 2008. 10 pages.
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Document Number: D01228
Notes:
Pages 185-207 in Steven A. Wolf (ed.), Privatization of agricultural information and agricultural industrialization. CRC Press, Boca Raton, New York, New York. 299 pages.
