Deciphering the Status of Willingness to Pay for Mobile SMS by Different Categories of Farmers: A Dairy Farming Perspective

Agriculture as well as dairying is becoming more and more information driven. Right information at right time can ensure better economic returns for the farming community. Eastern Regional Station of ICAR-NDRI has started one initiative to send SMS (short messaging service) pertaining to dairy farming to the farmers registered in the SMS portal. A total of 70 respondents who were registered in the portal have been selected randomly for the study to assess the respondent's willingness to pay for the service. All the respondents were willing to pay for the service and 7.14 per cent of the respondents were ready to pay more than Rs. 50 per SMS for receiving information. Education level of the respondents was not found to be associated with willingness to pay. The respondents were cosmopolite in nature which was suggested by the fact that 47.14 per cent of the respondents were using more than six sources of information. In case of ranking of preferential choice of SMS content, young respondents’ response was different than middle-aged and old-aged respondents. According to the respondents, updating knowledge base, elimination of confusion, setting priorities were some of the benefits generated by the SMS portal.