Mobile Phone: A Potential Tool for Agricultural Transformation

The role of ICT to enhance rural livelihoods is increasingly recognized. This includes the use of mobile phones in agricultural sector. Farming involves risks and uncertainties, with farmers facing many threats like drought, pest attacks and other natural calamities as well as the shortage of information to cope with these risks and uncertainties. According to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, there are 791 million mobile users in India among them 33.37% users are from village area. So there is a huge potential to reach the unreached. The more rapid growth of mobile telephony in village area and the introduction of mobile enabled information services provide a means to overcome existing information shortage. So the information dissemination potential of this innovative model should be properly used by the extension workers.