Information Search Behaviors of Indian Farmers: Implications for Extension Services

Glendenning, Claire J.; Babu, Suresh Chandra; Asenso-Okyere, Kwadwo

doi:10.1080/1389224x.2012.707064

Cited by 16 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 5 publications

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“…Reddy (2018), Hans India (2018), and Sumanth, et al(2020 highlighted the limited reach of the public extension, in addition, the extension system is burdened with non-extension responsibilities such as the distribution of subsidies and inputs, with little time left to attend to core extension activities like advising farmers to enhance adoption of new practices and techniques. The majority of farmers in India do not have access to any source of information; this lack of access severely limited their ability to increase productivity and income and reduce vulnerability (Glendenning et al 2010). Lack of technical advice, inputs, and ideas, collectively known as extension services for the small farm-holders was identified by the Ceres 2030 researchers globally based on a meta-analysis of >100000 research papers and reports as the main constraint for the adoption of new approaches/ technologies/products.…”

Section: Urgent Need To Surpass "Death Valley Of Impacts´mentioning

confidence: 99%

New paradigm for transforming Indian agriculture to climate-resilient and sustainable agriculture is a must

Wani¹

2023

J. Agrometeorol.

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Indian agriculture is the backbone of India’s food, nutrition, and income security as well as sustainable growth. Indian agriculture is unique with 20 agro-eco regions, and 80 agro-eco sub-regions growing more than 100 crops in 1000,000 villages by 145 million farm-holders. India moved from ship to mouth situation in the late 1960s to food self-sufficiency and has become Atmanirbhar and an exporter of food by producing 316.06 million tonnes in 2020-2021. However, rural India needs urgent attention as there is a great divide between the urban and rural family incomes, and the primary sector’s contribution to national GDP is hovering around 17-18% although the Indian economy is largely agrarian with 950 million rural population driving the economy. However, there is a large untapped potential in Indian agriculture to become the growth engine for the sustainable development of India as large yield gaps are existing. However, the challenges of growing water scarcity, increasing land degradation, growing population, urbanization, and most importantly impacts of climate change. Due to climate change with increasing temperatures, aridity is increasing in the country, and rainfall variability with a reduced number of rainy days and increasing intensity in different parts is a major concern. There is an urgent need to develop and adopt large-scale climate resilient management practices at a local level through empowering the small farm-holders with strengthened science of delivery using new science tools such as remote sensing (RS), global information system (GIS), internet of things (IoT), information technology (IT), artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), etc. Business as usual will not work and a new paradigm through building partnerships, enhancing collective action, market-led agro-eco region-based diversification and scaling-up through the empowerment of small farm-holders using new science tools is proposed. The government of India’s action plan with 11 national missions is in place and all stakeholders need to contribute by enabling policies and sincere implementation for building resilience against the impacts of climate change.

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Section: Urgent Need To Surpass "Death Valley Of Impacts´mentioning

confidence: 99%

New paradigm for transforming Indian agriculture to climate-resilient and sustainable agriculture is a must

Wani¹

2023

J. Agrometeorol.

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“…the major function of the agricultural extension service is that of providing technological support to farmers in terms of knowledge, skills and attitudes needed to improve the farmers' activities (okunade, 2007;republic of Kenya, 2010;). farmers require a diverse range of information to support their enterprises (Glendenning, babu & asenso-okyere, 2010) and the maasai agropastoralists are no exception. the agricultural extension service in Kenya plays a vital role in sharing of knowledge, technologies and agricultural information, as well as linking the farmers to other actors in the agricultural sector as well as the general economy (muyanga & Jayne, 2006;republic of Kenya, 2010).…”

Section: Research Focusmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Gender-Based Analysis of the Role of Agricultural Extension Services Among Maasai Agro-Pastoralists

Oywaya-Nkurumwa

Mwangi

Kathuri

2011

PEC

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The Maasai like many pastoralists around the world have in recent years been forced to seek alternative livelihoods as pastoralism becomes untenable due to climate change and population pressures. Agro-pastoralism is one of the alternatives being pursued, but there are associated challenges mainly due to the Maasai people’s lack of indigenous technical knowledge on crop farming, and negative cultural attitudes to the practice. Agricultural extension services have a crucial role to play as the major providers of necessary technical knowledge on crop cultivation. The purpose of this gender-based study was to investigate the role of government extension services among Maasai agro-pastoralists as a source of influence and information on crop cultivation. The study also sought to determine the type and frequency of extension contact that the agro-pastoralists receive. The study adopted a survey research design and was carried out in Narok North District of Kenya, using a sample of 153 male and 87 female household heads, who were selected either through multi-stage cluster sampling or systematic sampling. Agricultural extension workers and key informants also provided data for triangulation purposes. The findings indicated the respondents had low contact with agricultural extension service, with 55.6% of male respondents and 66.7% female respondents reporting having had no contact at all. Informal sources comprising of relatives, friends and neighbours were the leading source of influence to grow crops as well as the leading source of technical information on crop farming for most of them, more so for the female respondents. The frequency of extension contact was generally low, with 50% of male respondents and 64.3% of female respondents reporting a frequency of three times or less over the past two years. Fifty-one percent of male respondents and 53% of female respondents rated the information they received as inadequate. For the female respondents, the leading types of extension contact were farm and home visits and seminars as well as seminars. For the male respondents, the leading extension type was a combination of different extension methods including farm and home visits, field days, demonstrations, seminars and office visits. The study findings clearly indicated the inadequacy of the extension services provided for the Maasai agro-pastoralists. The study therefore concluded that there was need to strengthen agricultural extension services among them in order to facilitate successful livelihood diversification and promote food security and livelihoods. Key words: agricultural extension, agro-pastoralism, alternative livelihoods, Maasai, pastoralism.

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“…This act lays down guidelines for the minimum levels of physical and genetic seed purity, germination, labelling and certification. It also provides a system for seed quality control through independent Seed Certification Agencies (SCAs), which fall under the purview of state agricultural departments (Gadwal, 2003). The National Seeds Policy 2002 seeks to provide an appropriate climate for the seed industry to utilize available and prospective opportunities, safeguarding the interests of Indian farmers and the conservation of agro-biodiversity.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Caste, Social Networks and Variety Adoption

Gupta

Veettil²,

Speelman

2020

Journal of South Asian Development

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Social networks influence technology diffusion but targeting formal leaders (institutional central nodes) may lead to distributional consequences. This paper analyzes the role of informal social networks in technology diffusion in a socially hierarchical caste-based society. Often, information flow and technology diffusion are constrained by social and economic boundaries where informal nodes such as caste play a very decisive role in everyday life. Proper targeting and dissemination of technology to the marginalized sections of society are very important for their development. We observed that only one-fourth of farmers cultivate newer varieties which include hybrids and recently released high yielding varieties. The results showed that individuals belonging to marginal groups are influential and act as informal leaders when they are the dominant caste in the village. Progressive farmers are found to fail in disseminating new varieties, and targeting influential informal leaders who belong to the dominant caste of the village appears to be a better strategy. Among non-dominant caste members, influential leaders belonging to Other Backward Classes (OBCs) or Scheduled Tribes (STs) are more desirable targets than other caste groups. The more concentrated a network is in terms of its caste composition, the faster will be the spread of any technology.

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Information Search Behaviors of Indian Farmers: Implications for Extension Services

Cited by 16 publications

References 5 publications

New paradigm for transforming Indian agriculture to climate-resilient and sustainable agriculture is a must

New paradigm for transforming Indian agriculture to climate-resilient and sustainable agriculture is a must

A Gender-Based Analysis of the Role of Agricultural Extension Services Among Maasai Agro-Pastoralists

Caste, Social Networks and Variety Adoption

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