Indian Journal of Extension Education

In Bihar 90 per cent farmers are small holder farmers. Small Holder farmers are future of world agriculture to feed mammoth population. Being the small holder farmers are resource poor, it becomes imperative to study their information sources and need to support better decision making in farming. The study was conducted in Bihar Province of India among seven hundred twenty farmers. From the study it was noted that the major information needs of the farmers were seed availability, crop disease management, insect pest management, weed management and weather information and pesticide application. Farmers decision making was positively and significantly correlated with crop disease management(0.196*), insect pest management of crop (0.208*) and weed management (0.239**). Through the Path Analysis it was noted that farmers decision making on disease management was mediated by the information sources-agri-input dealers, Progressive Farmer, Bihar Agricultural University-Kisan Diary, Mobile Apps (Bihar Krishi Apps) and Kisan Salahkar. On an average, farmers used three to four information sources in decision of farming. ICT tools are becoming emerging information sources for the farmers. It can be concluded that these much needed information should be provided to the farmers though different ICT tools and extension personnel should be trained to operate these ICT tools for accelerated use of ICT tools by the farmers in their decision making.