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Ict for Dissemination of Agricultural Information to Rural Farmers of Bangladesh

M A Zaman
Professor
Department of Farm Power and Machinery, Bangladesh Agricultural University, Mymensingh 2202, Bangladesh.

Abstract/ Executive Summary:

This paper presents the development of agricultural information resources for the farmers and constraints in extending and using ICT tools for dissemination of these resources to the rural farmers. Low-cost ICT options are also discussed and concrete suggestions for improving the IT services to the farmers are presented. Agricultural information resources so far developed are not adequate and the NARS institutes must be brought under WAN and LAN and activated for accelerated development of the necessary resources. DAE’s extension services must be strengthened with required manpower and trained IT personnel and modernized with IT equipment and multimedia (audio and video) presentations. Lack of access to electricity and telecommunications is the major constraint in extending ICT in rural areas. Sixty-seven PBSs are now in operation providing electricity to 45,441 out of 87,928 villages. At present only 25 per cent of the rural population has access to electricity. It is expected that all the villages of the country will have access to electricity by 2020. Although GoB is committed to provide digital telephone exchange and internet connectivity to almost all of 470 sub-districts (urban areas only) within a couple of years, the rural areas will hardly be benefited. Since the dial-up connections are expensive and unstable, with slow connection speeds and frequent interruptions, wireless link through microwave or VSAT is believed to be appropriate for internet connectivity in rural areas.This paper presents the development of agricultural information resources for the farmers and constraints in extending and using ICT tools for dissemination of these resources to the rural farmers. Low-cost ICT options are also discussed and concrete suggestions for improving the IT services to the farmers are presented. Agricultural information resources so far developed are not adequate and the NARS institutes must be brought under WAN and LAN and activated for accelerated development of the necessary resources. DAE’s extension services must be strengthened with required manpower and trained IT personnel and modernized with IT equipment and multimedia (audio and video) presentations. Lack of access to electricity and telecommunications is the major constraint in extending ICT in rural areas. Sixty-seven PBSs are now in operation providing electricity to 45,441 out of 87,928 villages. At present only 25 per cent of the rural population has access to electricity. It is expected that all the villages of the country will have access to electricity by 2020. Although GoB is committed to provide digital telephone exchange and internet connectivity to almost all of 470 sub-districts (urban areas only) within a couple of years, the rural areas will hardly be benefited. Since the dial-up connections are expensive and unstable, with slow connection speeds and frequent interruptions, wireless link through microwave or VSAT is believed to be appropriate for internet connectivity in rural areas.

Keywords: Agricultural Information, Rural farmers, ICT in agriculture, Constraints

Location: Bangladesh Agricultural University, Mymensingh-2202, Bangladesh.

Start Date:

End Date:

Program Area: Knowledge Management

Non-commodity: ICT

Objectives:

To increase the production of all crops from an agricultural land base that is shrinking, average crop yield, as well as cropping intensity must increase using ICT technology.

Methodology:

The information available from different sources is required to be sorted, refined and converted into information packages in various forms for different users. The information materials and media of dissemination are: 1) Libraries of Printed materials and Audio-Visuals: a. Textual information in the form of books, booklets, bulletins, reports, journals, pamphlets, newspapers, etc. are kept in libraries for the readers. b. Information may be stored in audio cassettes to be played by audio cassette player and in CDs (audio-visual materials - multimedia presentations) to be played by VCD/DVD player or computer CD-ROM driver. 2) TV and radio broadcasts 3) Cable TV 4) Telecommunication through land and mobile phones 5) Internet 6) E-mail and voice mail. In this regard the following steps can be implemented to get effective results. i. AIC will collect all agricultural information from agricultural research organizations including NARS, other stakeholders engaged in R&D activities in agriculture. ii. AIC will also collect scripts of radio programmes on agriculture from Bangladesh Radio and video CDs on agriculture broadcasted by different TV channels. iii. DAE and NGOs can be given the responsibility of collecting information on success stories of progressive farmers and send these to AIC. iv. An information cell must be attached to the libraries of each of the research organizations along with trained manpower and adequate funding. These cells will collect information from different sections of the respective organizations and send the collected information to AIC for refining and subsequent preparation of information packages for the researchers as well as for the farmers. v. The information provided must be easily understood by the farmers and for that reason care must be taken in selection of words and terminologies. vi. AIC, DAE and ADAB (on behalf of the NGOs) can collaborate to produce information materials for both researchers and the farmers and upgrade the information when necessary. vii. Audio cassette and audio CD producer companies may be contracted for production and sale of audio materials. viii. Multimedia producer companies may be contracted for production and sale of VCD/DVD containing agricultural information. ix. AIC will distribute information packages to all research stations of the research organizations, DAE headquarters and local offices and NGOs. x. All the information package should be placed on the website of AIC for downloading by the users.

Source of Information: AFITA2006 5TH CONFERENCE OF ASIAN FEDERATION FOR INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY IN AGRICULTURE

Article Link (Online Journal):

Funding Source:

Total Budget (Tk.) :

Achievement/Findings:

More than 50% villages have no access to electricity and in electrified villages there is frequent load shedding. Acute shortage of electricity is one of the major problems limiting the development of internet access to rural population. Majority of the farmers are illiterate and information exchange through printed materials are not effective for them. On the other hand the number of agricultural population is so high that a massive allocation of fund is required for adequate number of extension workers to address all these people. Computer literacy is at a very low level. In addition there is inadequacy of local language software interfaces. The GoB as well Grameen Phone has introduced programmes to increase computer literacy, but it may take even a decade to reach a satisfactory level. The vast majority of people are not aware of the benefits of ICT. But it is expected that awareness will be automatically generated as soon as the ICT will reach the door steps of the common people. Moreover there are some policy issues and regulatory problems, which inhibit the use of ICT in rural areas.

Knowledge Management: Report/Proceedings