Information and Communications Technology Use in Agricultural Extension in

India

Ajit Maru
Research Officer (ISNAR)

Abstract

This paper draws upon the experience of the author on the development and use
of Information and Communications Technologies, especially the Radio, Television and
The Internet and Digital Technologies in agricultural extension in India.

The lessons that can be learned from the Indian experience in radio and television
for agricultural extension and rural development are:

o A hardware and network centric approach for rural communication fails to be

useful.
o Without content and indigenous capacity to generate content, communication
systems for agricultural extension are not sustainable.
o Setting up of a network per se is the easiest of all tasks in rural communication.
Enabling “access” is a major task and involves social, political and economic
interventions to benefit the targeted audience. With both radio and television,
exclusion to access occurred in the community. Exclusion was due to national
policies not only in broadcasting and mass communication but due to lack of
electricity, design of access points, cost of receivers, social barriers, economic and
political equity, education and literacy and many other factors.
o The role of agricultural research, education and development Institutions is
critical to content generation and skills development. Ignoring them in the
communication loop limits the National Agricultural Extension Systems capacity
to contribute to agricultural development.
o “Indigenous” technology, which customizes access to information, is essential for
sustainability of the agricultural and rural communication system.

India dominates Asia in the number of ICT/Internet technologies enabled rural

development programs. These projects can be classified as:

o Infrastructure
o Rural Services including e-governance
o Agriculture related which can be further classified as for:
o Marketing
o Community Mobilization and Development
o Agricultural Extension

The paper gives examples of these projects. At present, projects in agricultural

extension i.e. those whose objectives are to share information using the Internet have
significant difficulties in sustainability, scalability and ability to replicate. Policy makers

1
and planners have not learned the lessons from using radio and television in agricultural
extension.

The author suggests that India would benefit from approaching the issue of using
ICT in agricultural and rural development by focusing on providing broadband
connectivity and a content centric development approach. Sustainable ICT enabled
projects for rural development, which includes not only agricultural but health, education
and other information services will piggy-back both e-governance and private sector
agricultural marketing initiatives. For this, there will be a significant need for
restructuring agricultural and rural development institutions and organizations so that
they can generate useful and relevant content and partner with the public, private and
community sectors to deliver it to rural communities.

2
 Information and Communications Technology Use in Agricultural Extension in
India

Ajit Maru
Research Officer (ISNAR)

Introduction

This paper draws upon the experience of the author on the development and use
of Information and Communications Technologies, especially the Radio, Television and
The Internet and Digital Technologies in agricultural extension in India. After describing
the use of the technologies from a personal perspective, it attempts to list the lessons
learned so far in the use of these technologies. It is hoped that these lessons learned will
help design more effective information sharing and communication systems for
agricultural and rural development. Among some engaged in experimenting with IT for
agricultural extension in India there is common thought that if “IT does not work in India,
it will not work elsewhere” because the diversity of culture, language, society, economic
disparity and political conditions enable the IT to be tested in the most exacting and real
terms possible.

Radio

India’s post-independence experiments with Information and Communication

Technology (ICT) use in agricultural development started with the radio. The basic
elements of using radio were:

1. Establish All India Radio Stations located in various parts of the country that
broadcasts agricultural programs in a regional language through medium wave
radio which have a range of 100-150 km in radius
2. Enable rural communities to receive radio broadcasts through radio sets
provided by the Government to village panchayats (village level self
governance institutions)
3. Generate content such as radio talks, interviews with subject matter specialists
and farmer-listeners, question and answer sessions using cheap post cards etc.,
through linkages of radio stations with State Agricultural and Animal
Husbandry Departments and the newly established State Agricultural
Universities (SAU) which also had extension as a major activity

The unwritten aspects of this technology use for agriculture extension were many.
First of all it was government control, in spite of being a declared democracy, of the
medium. India was emerging from a colonial and feudal past. There was (and still is) the
fear that “free” use of mass media could be used for purposes that are subversive,
especially in rural areas, to the establishment. Socially, as I observed in the late 1960’s in
a Telengana village about 25 km outside Hyderabad, the State Capital, many lower-caste
individuals could not listen to a radio program sitting together in a community. They
could not even own a radio publicly in the community as the upper castes would not
tolerate such show of power and affluence. The radio receiver set was expensive (nearly a

3
months wage of a Government clerk) and of poor quality. One of the most desired items
from “foreign” was a transistor radio. In villages where there was no electricity, these
transistor radios were precious as they operated on “torch cells” or AA batteries. The
only manufacturer that produced these cells was the now infamous Union Carbide.
Slowly, the Government put in place the Bharat Electronic Limited, primarily for
producing defense electronics but which as a spin-off started developing radio
components. With local assembly by foreign such as Bush and Phillips and indigenous
manufacturers such as TELCO and availability of longer life “transistor” batteries
produced through Japanese collaboration, the transistor radio in the late 1980’s became
more common in Indian villages.

Commercialization of one channel gave a boost for the proliferation of the medium
wave radio network and, along with it, receivers in many rural areas. Radio software or
content for agricultural and rural development continued to remain a contentious issue
but was alleviated to some extent with the national thrust and greater investment in
agricultural research and extension for self-sufficiency in food production. The State
Agricultural Universities played a major role through scientific and technical support for
the program content. Capacity building for using radio in agricultural extension was a
training component in all graduate degree programs. This built strength in using radio for
agricultural development in state agricultural departments. Regional radio stations
broadcasting in local languages significantly overcame the language issue in a country
that has 16 official languages and hundreds of dialects.

All India Radio since independence has grown to have 208 Radio Stations. The
network of 332 with 149 Medium Wave and 128 Frequency Modulated transmitters
provides radio coverage to a population of 98.82% spread over 89.51% area of the
country. All the broadcasting centres have been networked through satellite for the relay
of National and Regional programmes. The stations of All India Radio together
broadcast more than 9000 farm and home programmes directed to rural audience. Farm
and home units function at most of the All India Radio Stations. There are more rural
radios than in urban areas. However, India, in spite of all its experience in radio and its
needs for accelerating rural development, has not truly used “rural” radio or the potential
of the FM radio for rural development. Primarily the constraint has been politics and
policy. Every government, including the present, in its 56 years of independence has
promised as an election pledge to free the airways and failed to do so.

Community radio has in recent times, however, started finding roots with several
initiatives such as VOICES, AID, MANA Radio, Deccan Development Society and the
Kutch Mahila Vikas Sangathan (Kutch Women’s Progress Cooperative). Most of these
initiatives are partnerships with the State’s All India Radio. It has only been a few months
since educational Institutions have been permitted to develop their own radio
broadcasting stations with a range up to 25 km. There have been very few takers to it.

An interesting experiment though very limited in range in using HAM Radio for
extension is underway in Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh.

4
Television

India was among the first countries among the developing world to test the use of
television for education in 1959 and in use of satellites and television for agricultural
extension in rural areas in 1975-1976. However, it has not exploited the medium to
advantage for development.

Black and White Television Broadcasting in New Delhi started in 1959 through a
pilot television center aided by UNESCO to test the medium’s efficiency in carrying
social education to poorer sections of India’s society. Till 1982, when India hosted the
Asian Games, television broadcasting was limited only to the four metro cities of Delhi,
Bombay (Mumbai), Madras (Chennai) and Calcutta (Kolkata) and a few urban centers.
Television till then was considered an “elite” entertainment for urban viewers. The first
program on the Television network between the Metropolitan Cities was musical. In
1984, anticipating elections the Government launched a massive program of raising an
India wide TV network of low power transmitters linked through INSAT satellites. In
1986, the P.C. Joshi Committee raised several questions about the direction the TV
network in India was taking, especially about its divergence from the objectives of using
the medium for development. The committee report also expressed grave concern about
program software especially that for rural development including agriculture.

TV programming, especially for agricultural extension, requires larger financial

outlays and needs different communication skills than using the radio. The SAU model
for supporting agricultural TV programming and generating skills that worked with radio
did not work with TV. This was because the SAUs had very little resources available to
train its students in using TV in extension. Some State Universities such as G.B. Pant
University of Agriculture and Technology (Pantnagar University) got funding through
UNDP for Audio-Visual Research Centers but with weak linkages to Doordarshan, the
National TV Network, the potential of these centers has been squandered. Similar has
been the case with the National Academy of Agricultural Research Management,
Hyderabad, where repeated investment in TV technology, especially for training under
UNDP, Agricultural Human Resource Development and National Agricultural
Technology Projects, was grossly under utilized both for skills and content development.

In turn, production of program software for agricultural extension is now limited

and what is being broadcasted daily from 6.00 – 7.30 PM on the national and regional
channels is insipid and reminiscent of old radio programs with talking faces and very
little field visuals.

Agricultural Universities also failed in creating video object repositories and in

networking content which would have saved significant costs. At the core was the lack of
a policy and a clear strategy to use TV for rural development. Of course, there are many
who believe that introduction of TV in India brought significant political change in India
especially the defeat of the Indian National Congress and rise of more rightist and
nationalist political parties.

5
 In the early 1990’s, the Pir Project by ISRO in Kheda District of Gujarat in the
use of localized Television with low power transmitters, where programming was also
done locally for local broadcasting, showed very good impact. However, the Central
Government did not allow the project to continue or be replicated.

During the same period, the Cable TV phenomenon using very low cost home
grown receiver technologies mushroomed across India. There was very little, because of
its unorganized nature and support of local politicians many among who owned the
distribution network, that the Government could do to control or regulate it. Initially, the
fear was that western software would overwhelm the local culture but this was proved
wrong. A vibrant and very professional TV software production industry along with
private TV netcasters (those who used Cable TV rather than TV stations to broadcast) has
emerged. However, except for 1 channel, ETV, most other channels have ignored
satisfying the needs for rural development. ETV has a popular TV program, Annadatta, in
Telegu. Trained agricultural journalists who have video cameras and facilities in 6
districts of Andhra Pradesh develop the software.

There are now some experiments in narrow casting using the almost defunct LPT
based TV transmitter network, the use of one way video, two way audio through satellite
by Gujarat Agricultural University and linkage of Andhra Pradesh Agricultural
University with private TV channels to produce software and use the channel for
netcasting.

Lessons Learned from use of Radio and TV Technologies for Agricultural Extension in
India

The lessons we can learn from the Indian experience in radio and television for
agricultural extension and rural development are:

o A hardware and network centric approach for rural communication fails to be

useful.
o Without content and indigenous capacity to generate content, communication
systems for agricultural extension are not sustainable.
o Setting up of a network per se is the easiest of all tasks in rural communication.
Enabling “access” is a major task and involves social, political and economic
interventions to benefit the targeted audience. With both radio and television,
exclusion to access occurred in the community. Exclusion was due to national
policies not only in broadcasting and mass communication but due to lack of
electricity, design of access points, cost of receivers, social barriers, economic and
political equity, education and literacy and many other factors.
o The role of agricultural research, education and development Institutions is
critical to content generation and skills development. Ignoring them in the
communication loop limits the National Agricultural Extension Systems capacity
to contribute to agricultural development.
o “Indigenous” technology which customizes access to information is essential for
sustainability of the agricultural and rural communication system.

6
The Internet

Though it is difficult to define what is an ICT intervention for agricultural

extension is, Asia, as a region, according to Digitaldividend.org with 37 per cent of the
World’s ICT enabled projects for rural areas has a significant lead over other regions.
Within Asia, India with 57 per cent of the Asian projects dominates the region in the
number of ICT enabled projects for rural areas. The question why India is answered by:

o A high population density

o Potential for economies of scale in a massive network
o Growing strength and capacity in use of information technologies
o Strong NGO networks that provides understanding of the rural poors’ needs
o Widespread use of English especially among NGOs
o World class educational facilities in the Institutes of Management and
Technology

To this I add, the indigenous capacity to generate ICT starting from multi-purpose
INSAT series of Satellites to the low cost handheld Simputer.

ICT enabled rural projects in India can be classified as those that provide:

o Infrastructure
o Rural Services including e-governance
o Agriculture related which can be further classified as for:
o Marketing
o Community Mobilization and Development
o Agricultural Extension

The ICT enabled projects can also be classified as being:

o Government or Public Sector

o Private Sector
o NGO led

Table: Examples of ICT Enabled Rural Development Project in Indiai

Category Government/Public Private Sector NGO

Sector Led/Public
Private
Community
Partnerships
Infrastructure National Informatics N-Logueiii SARIiv
Center Rural
Informaticsii
Wireless in Local Drishteevi Warna Project

7
 loop and CorDectv
Simputervii
Rural ICT Initiative of
Services Rajasthan
Government
including:
Vikas Darpan
RajNidi
Lokmitra viii
Bhoomi
ix
(Karnataka)
Gyandoot x(Madhya
Pradesh)
LokMitra
xi
(Himachal
Pradesh)
FRIENDS
(Kerala)xii
SETUxiii
Agriculture
Extension
Marketing Agmarketnetxiv E-Chaupalxv Oddanchatram
Marketxvi
Agriwatchxvii
Tarahaat
IndiaAgrilinexviii
Nagarjuna
Fertilizers
Corporationxix
EID-Parryxx
Tata Kisan
Kendraxxi
Community Managexxii Warna Wired
Mobilization Villages
NDDB led Milk
Cooperativesxxiii
Computers on
Wheelsxxiv
ISAP-Indiaxxv
MSSRF
Information
Villagesxxvi
Infothelaxxvii
Honey Beexxviii
Agricultural Agricultural
Extension Technology

8
 Information
Centersxxix
ICARxxx
GAU Satellite
Krishi Gosthi (Two
Way Satellite TV
Link)xxxi
TNAU Call
Centersxxxii
RaitaMitra
(Farmer’s
Friend)xxxiii
HPAU Call
Centersxxxiv

Sunil Khairnar of ISAP-India, through personal communication, has indicated the

information needs of Indian farmers (and I quote as such) as:

“The information needs of farmers across the country is varied and a study
1
established the following needs across the 3 states in select districts of Uttaranchal,
Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra:

1. Farmers need to know:

What to grow?
When to grow?
How to grow more? `
How to store & preserve?
When to sell?
Where to sell?
What price to sell at?

Farmers who understand market trends and market opportunities have a better
chance of succeeding than those who do not understand the same.

2. Government policy and notices regarding agriculture

3. Usage of fertilizers for higher productivity.
4. Crop Diseases, preventive measures and in case of disease curative measures.
5. Irrigation details like means, timing, and quantum. Information on water
conservation through advanced irrigation technology like Raintip, Drip etc
6. HYV seeds exact know how on usage in terms of selection, quantity sown per
hectare.
7. Education on what needs to be done at the preharvest stage and post harvest stage to
ensure productivity and quality with minimum losses.

1
Source: Information Needs Study, Indian Agribusiness Systems Pte Ltd, June 2001 to November 2001

9
8. Advice on crop rotation to maintain soil quality so that the crop productivity could
be increased and not negatively impacted as has happened in case of sugarcane in
many parts of the country.
9. Advice on fruits and vegetables because these are perishable in nature but provide
good opportunities for profit due to a great demand in domestic as well as world
markets.
10. Advice on the Vegetable crops to be sown, timing of sowing, varieties to be used,
areas for growing particular crops, irrigation requirements, preventive measures
from diseases, which pesticide should be used, pesticide usage, storage facilities
available, measures to be adopted for increased keeping quality during storage.
11. Advice on suitable crops to be taken on barren lands which lack soil quality and/or
irrigation facilities.
12. What is the export potential of Indian crop in world market? What are the standards
of crop in world market? How to improve their produce to world standard? Etc.
13. Information on agriculture allied activities in paper like dairy, pig, poultry, small-
scale industries etc. along with information about marketing of the products.
14. In case of Agro Industries Product selection and techno economic feasibility for
manufacture with information about raw material, credit facility, incentives,
supportive measures like subsidies etc.
15. Business and employment opportunities for women in rural areas.
16. Examples of state agricultural policies enacted by states so that farmers in other
regions gain awareness of agriculture development happening in other states.
17. Success stories on rural entrepreneurs, technology upgradation.
18. Weather Information on a local, regional and national basis.

Access to the above information would lead to fulfillment of one of the pre requisites
for an effective market system. However the current Research-extension-farmer linkages
in India have collapsed and the planning commissions as well as the government of India
have come around to a view that private sector and the voluntary sector would have a
larger role to play in dissemination of knowledge to the farming community.

The key issues affecting ICT Initiatives in Agriculture and particularly in

dissemination of marketing information are:

1. The lack of reliable connectivity in rural areas.

2. The sheer lack of purchasing power in the rural segment, which makes it necessary to
find sponsors (govt., co-operative, private sector companies) who benefit by way of
advertising, goodwill creation or fulfillment of certain objectives
3. The time element in establishing e-governance services in districts, which has a
cascading impact on investment cost
4. The need to have high usage of graphics and voice-overs (less confidence with
computers, low literacy levels) in content

10
The issues relating to mode of delivery are:

1. Farmers benefit more from simple technology, which communicates information,

which is relevant and easy to understand.
2. The efficiency of an information service should be judged by whether it meets the
needs of the end user.

The issues relating to point of delivery are:

1. Door delivery of information is limited by the fact that there are a very large number
of farm households and many families may not own radios or television sets and may
not have access to a daily newspaper. Access to computers or hand held devices are
literally a dream in most of these households.
2. Delivery of the information at the Mandi (market place) also is not a complete
solution as a small percentage of farmers transact at these markets on a given day
and they are also too engaged in their transactions to spend time on market
information.
3. Given the above and the illiteracy rates amongst farmers the role of the farmer
interfacing infomediaries- kiosks/clinics/co-procurement centers/service centers/ is
critical and vital.”

From Table 1 and Sunil’s study and observations, it becomes apparent that:

1. The organized private sector has begun to partner with Government and
Public Sector Organizations in providing rural telecommunication and
public access infrastructure
2. Several Government Initiatives form the core of providing rural services
through the Internet
3. Most of the Private Sector initiatives in agricultural extension are for
Agricultural Marketing and are Commodity Specific such as Soya by E-
Chaupal. They offer a sustainable model for transfer of agricultural
information, knowledge, skills and technologies.
4. Project in Community Mobilization are largely by NGOs or Public-
Private-Community partnerships. These projects have significant problems
in sustainability, replicability and scalability.
5. Agricultural Extension Information and Knowledge Services are mostly
from Government and Public Sector Organizations such as the Indian
Council of Agricultural Research and the State Agricultural Universities.
Visits to the websites of these organizations immediately reveal issues of
connectivity, content, capacity and capital investment.
6. Sustainable ICT enabled projects for rural development, which includes
not only agricultural but health, education and other information services
will piggy-back both e-governance and agricultural marketing initiatives.

The learning, at the moment, from the Internet enabled projects for agricultural
extension in India indicates similar flaws in planning and implementation, as was the case

11
for Radio and Television. Policy makers and planners have apparently not learned the
lessons from failures in using radio and television for agricultural and rural development.
The focus even now has been on developing infrastructure; for example India expects to
have 1 Internet connected PC in its 500,000 villages by 2008. There is very little
emphasis on generating content or in building capacity in agricultural and rural
development Institutions and Organizations to use Internet technologies in agricultural
extension.

Conclusion

From the Indian case, in my opinion, the infrastructure/network development

approach, especially for the use of the Internet and Digital Technologies, is lopsided.
Without useful and relevant content, most of the Government and Public Sector
initiatives, even if the network is established, cannot be sustained. The expectations of all
initiatives, especially as regards to the timeline, are too high. It has taken India 50 years
in the case of radio and the medium has not yet given its dividends in agricultural
extension. A more complex and complicated technology may take even longer unless
capacity building and content generation are accelerated. In the case of using Internet
technologies, India has to learn from the South Korean Model in using ICT in agricultural
extension and rural development. First, Broadband connectivity is imperative to tackle
the issue of illiteracy. Second, without content, connectivity is useless. Thus, India has
to focus on broadband connectivity and a content centric Internet use strategy to be
successful in using ICT for rural development including agricultural extension. The third
important issue is investment in content generation. The present agricultural research
system needs significant change in its structure before it can generate useful and relevant
content. Because of the public good nature of this content, the private sector would not
invest in its generation. Therefore, there is an urgent need for strengthening and
restructuring the public sector research, especially the State Agricultural Universities, in
generating content and in partnering with other actors in the public, private and
community sectors for effective use of ICT in agricultural extension and rural
development.

12
 Links:
i
See http://www.gopio.net/india_development/best_pratices.htm for a growing list and description. This
list is also not complete as regards agricultural initiatives.
ii
http://ruralinformatics.nic.in/
iii
N-Logue-http://www.n-logue.co.in/home.htm
iv
http://edevelopment.media.mit.edu/SARI/mainsari.html
v
http://www.tenet.res.in/cordect/cordect.html
vi
http://www.drishtee.com/
vii
http://www.simputer.org/
viii
http://www.lokmitra.gov.in/
ix
http://www.revdept-01.kar.nic.in/
x
http://www.gyandoot.net/
xi
http://himachal.nic.in/lokmitra/lokmitra_hdr.htm
xii
http://www.gopio.net/india_development/best_pratices.htm#frnds
xiii
http://setu.maharashtra.gov.in/
xiv
http://www.agmarketnet.nic.in
xv
http://www.itcportal.com/sets/agreeex_frameset.htm
xvi
http://www.oddanchatrammarket.com/
xvii
http://www.agriwatch.com
xviii
http://indiagriline.com/
xix
http://www.ikisan.com
xx
http://www.indiagriline.com/
xxi
http://www.tatatkk.com/kisan_kendra.htm
xxii
http://www.manage.gov.in/
xxiii
http://www.nddb.org/
xxiv
http://www.maavooru.net/aboutCOW.asp
xxv
http://www.isapindia.org/
xxvi
http://www.mssrf.org/
xxvii
http://www.iitk.ac.in/MLAsia/infothela.htm
xxviii
http://www.sristi.org/
xxix
See Manage and ICAR
xxx
http://www.icar.org.in/
xxxi
http://gauanand.com/
xxxii
http://dbs.tn.nic.in/tnau/Default.htm
xxxiii
http://raitamitra.kar.nic.in/
xxxiv
http://www.hpkv.hp.nic.in/

13