Enhanced role of ICT in Extension, Research and Governance towards achieving sustainable agriculture – A study of Punjab

Agriculture is backbone of nation’s economy. The sustainable development of agriculture depends upon the accessibility of scientific information. ICT has promising potential to contribute in the individual information need and develop strong communication network between researcher-extension agent-farmers. Its opportunities extended to the areas of extension, education and research. In Punjab, numbers of services are providing by the public as well as private agencies but its use is limited. Progressive farmers showed the appreciable extent of use of cell phones in the area of extension followed by computers and landlines but negligible use of internet in all components. The major area of use was the information regarding the local extension services, development projects and expert advice. In governance, health services and payment of bills are major activities used by the landlines and cell phones respectively. They showed negligible interest in the area of research. Among the non progressive farmers, there reliability was more on landlines and used it mainly for expert advice and local extension services. They also used cell phones appreciably to gather the information on sustainable practices while subsidiary information, banking and health services were major services among the e-governance. The uses of computers were meager but internet use was almost none among both the groups of farmers. The limiting factors were the low level of education and exposure with the media of the non progressive farmers. Whereas, lack of awareness and basic infrastructure in the villages are the main reason of differences in the information required by both the groups of farmers. Conclusively, there is need of integrated efforts through educating and training the farmers to make them comfortable with ICT use.