Title Integrating ICTs in Agricultural Development- A Case for ATMA project

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Title Integrating ICTs in Agricultural
Development- A Case for ATMA project

• Authors
• Manish Kumar
• Chitra Pathak
• S.P.Gupta

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Introduction

• Even though agriculture only contributes over 25
  to our GDP, it is a source of livelihood for more
  than 60 per cent of the population.
• Farming has become knowledge intensive, the need
  for information is very high and the quantity of
  information generated or exchanged is also huge
• Hence the need to revamp conventional
  agricultural extension system
• Here ICTs can play an important role

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• When used as a broad tool for providing local
  farming communities with scientific knowledge,
  ICT heralds the formation of knowledge societies
  in the rural areas
• As a result in last 6-7 years many ICTs projects
  and programmes have been launched in India.
•  Some of the much talked about ICT projects are
  Gyandoot in Madhya Pradesh, Bhoomi in Karnataka,
  e-Sewa in Andhra Pradhesh, SARI in Tamil Nadu,
  Nabanna in West Bengal, and WARNA in Maharashtra.

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• This paper has made an effort to discuss the role
  of ICTs in agriculture within the context of a
  research study of the Agricultural Technology
  Management Agency (ATMA) project in the
  Muzaffarpur district of Bihar.
• ATMA Under the ITD component of NATP

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• The ITD component aims to test new innovations in
  technology dissemination and also to give a new
  direction to the Indian extension system with
  pilot testing of the Agricultural Technology
  Management Agency (ATMA) model in 28 pilot
  districts of India.
• an exploratory study with an objective to
  generate empirical information for improving the
  current efforts in the Muzaffarpur district of
  Bihar

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• Summary of Findings
• Lack of relevant information
• Officials in the role of trouble shooters
• External agents defined problems and information
  gathering process, and so controlled analysis
• Positive perception of farmers about their groups
• Confidence and capability to scale up
• Official focus on achieving the target of numbers

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• Lack of interaction with NGOs
• Negative perception of Officials about NGOs
• Differential capability of stakeholders
• Lack of interaction among village, block and
  district level functionaries
• Power vested at the Top

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What ICTs can do?

• Provide access to information regarding
  cultivation, post-harvest processing, market
  condition, etc.
• Establish direct relationship with potential
  buyers, thus increasing producers bargaining
  power
• Facilitate gathering and sharing of agricultural
  information
• Multi-media community centre in the village can
  extend access to information about health,
  education, business, etc., besides providing a
  platform for communication within the village and
  with the rest of the world as well
•        

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• Support bottom-up, horizontal, top-down and
  diagonal articulation of needs and facilitate
  integration of local and global knowledge
• Facilitate building consensus among various
  actors through multi-directional exchange of
  information on each other's actions or
  initiatives
• Create, support and strengthen interactive and
  collaborative networks, which ensure information
  flow to and from farming community
• Facilitate dialogue among concerned actors to
  resolve problems at hand
• Improve work efficiency by overcoming physical
  and time barrier

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• Innovations in ICT Applications
• e-Learning
• -For instance in Thailand APRTC (www.aprtc.org)
• VASAT Initiative
• - A new extension communication approach that
  will help enhance food and livelihood security of
  the vulnerable farm families that inhabit the SAT
  region of the developing world

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Research in ICT and Agri. Development-Challenges

• Projects designed to meet information needs in
  their target population, according to their
  individual mandates and the agenda they
  establish.
• Driven by institutions rather than community
• Increase awareness among agriculture officials
  about the usefulness of ICTs
• Need for full-fledged strategy to harness ICTs
  potential for assisting overall agricultural
  development.

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• User equity from a gender perspective very low
• Efforts should made to develop among the farmers
  both a satisfactory level of faith in the
  intentions of the ICT staff and a firm commitment
  to the goals of the proposed project
• Participatory and rapid rural appraisals should
  be carried out to ascertain what information the
  farmers need
• More qualitative studies should be conducted to
  get in-depth understandings of the project
  impacts
• Ethnographic approach may be a good alternative

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CONCLUSIONS

• ICTs a potential alternative way to meet farmers
  needs in a cost effective manner if integrated in
  the agricultural development process
• Participatory extension approaches should be
  incorporated in projects
• Using all kind of available technologies
• Need to develop and implement alternative and
  effective extension approaches which meets the
  changing needs of its clientele.

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Thank You.