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Time warp: Rural India still info-starved

Shivom Chakravarti, TNN Aug 12, 2006, 02.19am IST

Any decision is only as good as information used to arrive at it. By that count, the Indian farmer's fate is rather unfortunate. In urban India, the ability to ascertain information is easier due to the proliferation of media.

But that is far from the case in rural India, where an NSSO survey of the 59th round has shown that only 40% of rural farmers have access to information, while 60% of farmer households have no access to information.

A farmer does not even have access to basic information, which could help him improve his methods of cultivation. A farmer is equally dependent on information on various factors like weather, area under cultivation, demand-supply situation for various crops, prices, seed and fertiliser usage. Lack of access to this information puts him at a disadvantage. In fact, progressive farmers have emerged as the leading source of information in rural India.

They are organisations or associations that include different farmers' organisations or associations of growers of particular crops or farm produce, who serve farmers with important information on improvement of that crop or product. There were about 16.7% of farmer households that accessed information from other progressive farmers.

Rural households residing in Andhra Pradesh, and Gujarat relied the highest on other progressive farmers for information, while Chhattisgarh and Jammu & Kashmir relied the least. Most of the information given out by the progressive farmers was mainly on improving seeds, and the different variety of seeds.

Input dealers proved to be the second most important source of ascertaining information in rural India, and 13.1% of the rural households accessed information from them. An input dealer is an individual or agency dealing in different agricultural inputs such as seeds, fertilisers, manure, and pesticides.

Most information received by farmers was on account of fertilizer applications. Farmers living in West Bengal and Andhra Pradesh seem to have received the highest amount of information from input dealers, while farmers in Chhattisgarh, and Jammu & Kashmir received the lowest information. There were 13% of farmer households that received information from the radio.

Most information received by farmers from the radio was mainly on seeds and the different varieties of seeds. Farmers in Jammu & Kashmir, and Kerala had the highest incidence of radio, while Rajasthan, and Chhattisgarh had the lowest penetration of radio.

Other important sources of information for farmer households are extension workers, television sets, newspaper, village fairs, government demonstrations, primary co-operative societies, food processors, and credit agencies. In fact, there were close to 50% of the farmer households that adopted the practice recommended.

Most of the information was given on cultivation, while there were also signs of information dispersed on animal husbandry and fishery.