Farmers ’opinion about utilization of internet communication technology in agriculture

Internet communication has touched almost all the district in our country and is mainly down up to the village levels. Internet offers a means for bridging the gap between developmental professional, rural people and agricultural producers through the initiation of interaction and dialogue. Keeping all the views in mind the study entitled opinion of the farmers regarding internet facility was carried out in Jodhpur district of Rajasthan state. Four villages having more than 4500 population and comparatively sound infrastructure facilities were selected purposely. A list of progressive farmers was prepared with the help of village level workers from all the selected villages. Finally, 30 farmers were selected from each villages using simple random sampling technique. Thus, the study was confined to 120 farmers. The results showed that majority of the farmers understood that internet is a rich source to collect world wide information on agriculture and it is the fastest way to exchange information in shortest time. Majority of farmers completely or to a certain degree felt that through internet is costly affair for the farmers but it is the best mean to collect information on market price of agricultural products. Eighty nine per cent of the farmers were wishing their children to make positive use of internet at the same time 83.45 per cent of them had opinion that farmers should make use of internet. Out of the independent variables like education, land holding, experience of internet use and mass media exposure were observed positively significant while, remaining five variables such as type of the family was observed negatively significant with the opinion of the farmers about the use of internet for farming community. The independent variables like age, occupation, animal wealth, modern agricultural equipment, types of family, extension contact and organization participation were observed non-significant with the opinion of the farmers about the use of internet for farming community.