Mobile telephony: A boon for indian farmers

Mobile phone emerges as a great tool to enhance the system of transfer of information in agriculture, but its use is limited in certain areas. The various features of mobile phone, which make it versatile, are SMS, MMS and GPRS etc. The technology of mobile phone is developing rapidly every day. Mobile Telephone is playing a very important role in fulfilling the information needs of farmers. So, an effort in this paper has been made to enumerate the uses of mobile phones in farm communication. As in Production, farmers get timely information of weather forecasts, crop advisory. In Marketing and Supply, day to day information of commodity prices, market and other relevant information are available. Mobile learning can educate farmers. In governance, it emerges with a new concept of mgovernance and feedbacks through it can revolute research system. A sample survey was also conducted to know the credibility of the sources, usefulness and attitude towards mobile messaging services on 75 farmers of Baran district of Rajasthan. The data of survey revealed that the krishi vigyan Kendra, Baran was most credible sources of farm information and the majority of respondents (81.33 percent) had favourable attitude towards mobile messaging services. The opinion of farmers also shows that the almost all respondents perceived mobile messaging services were useful to them.