Information seeking behaviour of farmers: Role of input dealers in bridging the lab-to-land gap in telangana and Andhra Pradesh

Introduction

Agriculture and allied sector continues to be pivotal to the sustainable growth and development of the Indian economy which meet the food and nutritional requirements of 1.3 billion Indians and contributes significantly to production, employment and demand generation through various backward and forward linkages (GoI, 2016) [6] . Indian agriculture contributed by millions of small and marginal farmers who are generally illiterate and have little or no access to resources to access modern technology in agriculture (Yadav et al., 2015) [19] . ICAR has generated a number of technologies and information through concentrated research efforts. However, a considerable proportion of information remains within the precincts of research institutes due to one or the other reasons, including poor linkages between research and extension systems (Reddy et al., 2005) [16] . In India, though it is generally claimed that public extension is system the predominant source of farm information dissemination (Nirmala et al., 1995) [14] . Although the public extension system strives to fulfill the demands of inputs as well as information, still there is a huge gap in the demand and supply of these needs which are mostly fulfilled by the private sector (Mukherjee et al., 2012) [13] . The wide farmer extension workers ratio i.e., 2879:1 (Mukherjee and Maity, 2015) [12] , may be due to administrative and bureaucratic workload and financial limitations etc. and also due to the mode of public extension services which is more supply driven rather than demand driven (Sulaiman et al., 2005) [17] . Farmers face new challenges due to lack of information on how to deal with the issues of climatic variability, market uncertainty, new technology etc. (Mittal, S., & Mehar, M. 2013) [10] . The access to reliable, timely and relevant information can help significantly in many ways to reduce farmers' risk and uncertainty, empowering them to make good decisions. However, whether or not this access leads to impact often depends on issues related to markets, institutions, policies and resource availability. Several studies have shown that the wide availability and multiple sources of information have not significantly changed farmers' behavior towards new technologies and information -a fact that is often attributed to a lack of knowledge or understanding of farmers' perspectives and needs on the part of information providers (Mittal, S., & Mehar, M. 2013) [10] . Although mobile phones play an important role in bridging the information gap, they cannot substitute for face-to-face interaction and their use to deliver information has to be complemented with other information sources.

Methodology

The study was conducted in the state of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh, which were selected purposively for the www.extensionjournal.com study. MANAGE is the host institute of DAESI and this project is being implemented in these states very successfully. Multi-stage random sampling technique was adopted to select the respondents from both the states. From each selected state, two districts were also selected purposively based on the criteria of DAESI programme implementation. Hence, Adilabad and Karim Nagar districts of Telangana and West Godavari and Guntur districts of Andhra Pradesh were selected purposively as the project being implemented in these districts since its inception. A total of 30 farmers from each district were selected and, thus the final sample size was 120 farmers for the detailed survey work. An interview schedule was developed for assessing crop information need related to crops such as input availability, cultural practices, post-harvest practices, market related information and credit related informationwere assessed. A Likert type scale was used for getting responses on a 5-point scale ranging from very important information to not important information. A score of 5 was given to very important information, 4 against somewhat important information so on and so forth. The information need of the farmers was measured with modified Standardized Information Need Index (SINI) developed by Kabir et al., (2014) [8] .

Results and Discussion

The socio-economic profile of the farmers is very much important with respect to understand the information seeking behaviour of the farmers. In particular, the education of the farmer has a greater impact and the education of the respondents from the study is presented in 2 depicted the descriptive selective demographical features of the farmer respondents in the study area. The age distribution of the respondents revealed that majority of the farmers were old aged with mean age of 54.48 years in Telangana and 61.11 years in Andhra Pradesh. The majority of them were member of cooperative societies. It was observed that the agriculture was the main source of income for majority of farmers of more than 90 percent of farmers in both the states. Ground water as a source of irrigation was available with 58.34 percentage of farmers in Telangana and 62.5 percentage of farmers in Andhra Pradesh. The average land holding of farmers in Telangana was 5.96 acres while that of Andhra Pradesh farmers was 5.55 acres. The average distance of the residence from the market for Telangana farmers was 5.96 kms while that of Andhra Pradesh farmers was 7.33 kms. www.extensionjournal.com Information seeking is a complex process consisting of social, communicative and interactive behaviour (Fourie, 2004) [4] . This activity incorporates a series of encounters with information within a space of time, rather than a single reference point. The information seeking behaviour was assessed with the socioeconomic profile of the farmer respondents through logit regression model (Table 3). It was found that the information seeking behaviour was positive and significantly correlated with the age, education and distance from market. It is in line with the study of Brar et al. (2004) [2] regarding personality linkages with communication behaviour cotton growing farmers, education, land holding, income, mass media exposure and extension contacts had a positive and significant correlation with the information seeking behaviour and education, income and extension contacts were correlated positively and significantly with information sharing behaviour. The type of information with respect to the crop production is also important from the view point of farmers. An assessment was done to the type of information by the farmers from different sources (Table 4). Based The results of standard information need index (SINI) values reveal that information related with crop protection had been ranked one with SINI value 77.2. This finding is in consonance with the NSSO (2005) finding which stated that the four most important information needs are disease and pest management, pesticide and fertilizer application. Similarly, Ganesan et al., (2013) [5] , in their study of use of mobile multimedia agricultural advisory systems by Indian farmers, opined that a majority of the farmers perceived information on pest and disease control as most important. The results of SINI index showed that the information related with crop production were 74.1, and were ranked as second by the respondents. Similarly Tologbonse, et al., (2008) [18] carried the study of information need of rice farmers community in Niger state disclosed that majority of farmers (89.9%) need information about the crop production packages. Thereafter, different information needs were ranked by the farmers, viz., soil health management (74.1), Market related (67.5), crop processing and post-harvest (57.9), Agri. Machinery (54.1) and crop processing and PH (45.4). This finding is similar to NSSO, 2005, which mentioned that the information given the lowest importance was related to post-harvest aspects -grading, storage, consumer behavior, transport and distribution.

Access to Information sources by farmers

All the farmer respondents reported that they accessed information from various sources. It was mentioned that farmers do not rely on a single source for getting all the farm related information. Among the different sources that each farmer uses for collecting information, they were asked to list the sources of information. Based on their response (Table 5), input dealers were found as major source of information by 92.5% of the farmers, followed by other farmer friends by 85% of farmers, mobile and internet (43.3%), television (41%), state department of agriculture (29.2%), radio (17.5%), cooperatives (13.3%), Krishimela (12.5%), KVKs (10.8%), commission agents (7.5%), NGOs (1.7%), and SAUs (1.67%). www.extensionjournal.com Based on information Use Index (IUI), farmers were used to collect necessary information from input dealer (IUI-258). The farmers had more trust on the input dealers and the fellow farmers rather than the agricultural institutes/organizations viz. SAU, KVKs etc. Similar results were found by Kabir et al., (2014) [8] and reported that input dealers were the chief source of information for the farmers for information seeking behavior of farmers in Bangladesh. It was also fund that other farmers' friend (IUI-256.5) was second important source of information need as perceived by the farmers. Bachav (2012) reported that first preferred sources of the information of the farmers were colleague or fellow farmers for the information needs of the rural farmers from Maharashtra. Mittal and Mehar (2013) [10] also reported that for information regarding farming, the farmers usually inquire from other farmers and input dealers. Kumar et al., (2017) reported that the majority of farmers were dependent on input dealers, agriculture extension officers and neighbours and friends for agricultural information. The public sector research stations and Krishi Vigyan Kendras (Farm Science Centers) were accessed by even fewer respondents -1.7% and 1.6% respectively (NSSO, 2005). The public agricultural extension system which is responsible for disseminating agricultural information to farmers has become less effective, more time consuming and unsuccessful in meeting the requirements of those involved in agricultural production and there is a gap between the extension agent and the farmers (Mruthunjaya and Adhiguru, 2005) [11] . Input dealers who promote their agrochemicals play a critical role in filling the information gaps that may exist in rural areas (NSSO, 2005). Mobile and internet was ranked third (Ganesan et al., 2013) [5] . The results also showed that nearly 32% of farmers used mobile multimedia agricultural advisory system frequently as and when they needed information. The farmers perceived market information, including daily updates on the prices of agricultural commodities in the local markets of the surrounding district, as one of the most relevant mobile based agricultural information services. This was considered as most appropriate by 50.66% of farmers. Timely access to market price information at the time of harvest helps farmers decide where to sell, which enables them to fetch good prices for their products. Television and State department of agriculture, fourth and fifth, respectively. Agricultural researchers and SAUs were rarely sought for information by the farmers in the study area (Sunil & Sangeetha, 2016) [9] .

Reasons for choosing a particular Source of Information

Farmers were asked to give the most important reason for choosing any particular source of information. Farmers face a lot of difficulties in getting timely, reliable, and relevant information (Claire et al., 2010). Information must be relevant and meaningful to farmers, in addition to being packaged and delivered in a way preferred by them (Diekmann et al., 2009) [3] . In agriculture relevant and timely information helps farmers' community to take right decision to sustained growth of agriculture activity, timely access to market information helps farmer make correct decisions about what crops to plants and where to sell their product and buy inputs (Bachav, 2012). NSSO, 2005 also reported that the major constraints to information access were poor reliability and timeliness. The main reason for choice of source was proximity (33.7%), assured quality (21.1%), only available option (20.6%), and timely availability (13.7%). It was found that a total of 111 farmers visited input dealers due to proximity (57 farmers), timely availability of information (30 farmers), and good quality of information (24 farmers) provided by them. The second highest number of farmers preferred other fellow farmers over other sources because they were the source nearby. Hence it is inferred that the majority of farmers opted for input dealers and fellow farmers as their chief source of information because of proximity. This finding is in line to NSSO (2005) finding which mentioned that the interpersonal contacts were the most preferred medium of information. Farmers still consider the information from government agencies like KVKs, SAUs, Line departments as reliable, but the main problem is in convenience and timeliness of information. www.extensionjournal.com

Conclusion

Information is a basic necessity of everyday life, which can be obtained or retrieved from a variety of sources to meet the several needs of life. Farmers constitute a particular group of users whose information needs is very specific viz., information for crop protection, crop production, soil health management, market related, credit source, machinery, processing and post-harvest. It was revealed from the study that the information seeking behaviour of the farmers was mostly related to crop protection and crop production. The main basic sources of information of the farmers were input dealers as well as well friend farmers. It was also revealed that the main reasons for choosing the input dealers and friend farmers were, i.e., convenience for the information, reliable and relevant, and timeliness of the information. It can be concluded that the delivery of agricultural information tailored to the different information search behaviors of farmers is important for extension programmes in its implementation. Therefore, it is necessary to understand farmers' information needs in designing appropriate policies, programmes, and organizational innovations to increase its suitability at grassroots level. Farmer needs and preferences should be given due consideration for achieving success in implementing the modern tools and technology.

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