5811 Farmers’ Preferences for Mobile Agro Advisory Services D. Prabha 1 and R. Arunachalam 2 ABSTRACT This study was conducted in Coimbatore district of Tamil Nadu to understand the service preferences of the mobile agro advisory services offered by the public extension system. The agro advisories offered by the e-extension centre of Tamil Nadu Agricultural University were selected for the study. A sample of 200 respondents was selected employing proportionate random sampling method. The study was carried out in terms of dimensions viz., technical components, message frequency and timings, message physical dimension, message channel and message follow up. Results of the survey showed that among the technical components majority of the respondents opined that the information on advance warning of weather risks was very much adequate, the messages on plant protection were relevant and that the messages on advance warning of weather risks were timely. With reference to the message frequency, a majority preferred frequency of the messages on daily basis and preferred to receive messages during mornings. Keywords : Agro-advisory service; mobile phone; preferences; Tamil Nadu 1. Ph.D. Scholar and 2. Professor, Dept. of Agricultural Extension and Rural Sociology, Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore-3 Received : 14-03-2017; Accepted : 4-08-2017 INTRODUCTION Mobile phone is a key component of agricultural development of farmers to improve the production and productivity of the cultivation. All over India, Agricultural Universities, Krishi Vigyan Kendras, private sector and Non Government Organizations send agricultural information to farmers through short message services (SMS) and voice calls. Messages covering agricultural inputs such as seed, fertilizer and cultivation techniques, plant protection, harvesting, weather forecasting and other location based information are sent to farmers. A national survey of farmers had found that only 40 per cent of farmer households accessed information about modern agricultural techniques and inputs (NSSO, 2005). In overall Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) usage and applications, the mobile phone has been regarded as a more accessible and less expensive means to bridge the digital divide (Wade, 2004). With regard to the usage of mobile phone networking in agricultural Journal of Extension Education Vol. 29 No. 1, 2017 DOI:https://doi.org/10.26725/JEE.2017.1.29.5811-5817 5812 development, Tamil Nadu has huge number of farmers subscribed to the mobile agro advisory services from public, private and NGOs sectors. Among the public sector mobile agro service providers viz., Tamil Nadu Agricultural University (TNAU) and State Department of Agriculture are providing SMS advisories to farmers in Tamil Nadu. Among these, TNAU is the prominent technology provider and its subscribers density, geo graphical coverage and technology coverage are comparatively higher and hence SMS based agro advisories of TNAU was selected for the present study. The e-Extension centre of Tamil Nadu Agricultural University facilitates the SMS agro advisory services in Tamil Nadu. The main objective of the present study is to understand the farmers’ preferences of mobile agro advisory services in Tamil Nadu. METHODOLOGY The study was conducted in Coimbatore district of Tamil Nadu considering the vast subscription by farmers in the district. Annur and Kinathukadavu blocks of Coimbatore district were selected for the study considering the coverage of subscribers the of the service. The study sample comprised 200 farmers (Annur - 107, Kinathukadavu – 93). The respondents from each block were selected by employing proportionate random sampling method. An ex post facto research design was used and structured questionnaire was prepared and administered to collect data, by face to face interaction. Data were coded and tabulated. The statistical software SPSS was used to analyze the data. Service preference was assessed in the terms of technical components, message frequency and timings, message physical dimension, message channel and message follow up. FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION Technical components Under technical components, respondents’ preferences were assessed with the response categories such as ‘adequacy (adequate or inadequate)’, ‘relevancy (relevant or not relevant) ’, and ‘timeliness (timely or untimely)’. Message Adequacy It is apparent from Table 1 that majority (74.00 %) of the respondents expressed that the technical input on advance warning of weather risks was adequate, followed by crop disease (71.00 %), price of raw materials (68.00 %), fertilizers application (67.50 %), and pesticide related information (54.00 %).With regard to the inadequate services, 100 per cent of the respondents had expressed that the information on cold storage networks and transportation were inadequate, followed by 98.50 per cent stated that the information input related with the export price, new crop varieties (93.50 %), seeds (89.00 %), local price (81.00 %) and cultivation techniques (62.50 %) were felt inadequate. Farmers’ Preferences for Mobile Agro Advisory Services 5813 Message Relevancy It could be inferred from the findings that majority of the respondents expressed that they received relevant messages on Table 1. Service Preferences of the Respondents (n=200) Sl. No. Particulars Adequacy* Relevancy* Timeliness* Adequate Inadequate Relevant Not relevant Timely Untimely No. % No. % No. % No. % No. % No. % A) Technical Components 1. Cultivation techniques 75 37.50 125 62.50 136 68.00 64 32.00 172 86.00 28 14.00 2. New crop varieties 13 6.50 187 93.50 43 21.50 157 78.50 67 33.50 133 66.50 3. Crop disease 142 71.00 58 29.00 173 86.50 27 13.50 189 94.50 11 5.50 4. Seeds 22 11.00 178 89.00 57 28.50 143 71.50 73 36.50 127 63.50 5. Fertilizers application 135 67.50 65 32.50 163 81.50 37 18.50 185 92.50 15 7.50 6. Pesticides 108 54.00 92 46.00 155 77.50 45 22.50 181 90.50 19 9.50 7. Advance warning of weather risks 148 74.00 52 26.00 164 82.00 36 18.00 191 95.5 9 4.50 8. Cold storage networks - - 200 100.00 - - 200 100.00 - - 200 100.00 9. Transportation - - 200 100.00 - - 200 100.00 - - 200 100.00 10. Price of raw materials 136 68.00 64 32.00 97 48.50 103 51.50 126 63.00 74 37.00 11. Local price 38 19.00 162 81.00 94 47.00 106 53.00 129 64.50 71 35.50 12. Export price 3 1.50 197 98.50 2 1.00 198 99.00 9 4.50 191 95.50 (* multiple responses) crop disease (86.50 %), advance warning of weather risks (82.00 %), fertilizers application (81.50 %), pesticides (77.50 %) and cultivation techniques (68.00 %). Journal of Extension Education 5814 Message Timings It is observed from Table 1 that majority (95.50 %) of the respondents had expressed that they received timely messages on advance warning of weather risks, followed by crop disease. Further, they considered the receipt of some of the messages as untimely such as those related with cold storage networks and transportation (100.00 %), export price (95.50 %), new crop varieties (66.50 %) and the seeds (63.50 %). Preferred Frequency of Messages It was found out that majority (53.50 %) of the respondents preferred to receive the messages on daily basis, followed by 23.50 per cent of the respondents preferred to receive the messages once in 2 days, weekly basis (9.50 %), monthly basis (7.00 %) and the rest 6.50 per cent of the respondents preferred to receive the messages occasionally receiving. Preferred Time of Receiving Messages It was found out that majority (55.00 %) of the respondents preferred to receive the messages during ‘morning hours’, followed by 21.00 per cent of the respondents’ preferred timings of the messages was during ‘anytime’. The other preferences such as during ‘afternoon’ (12.50 %), during ‘night’ (7.50 %) and during ‘evening’ hours (2.50 %) were also observed in this study. Preferred Length of the Messages The distribution of respondents according to their preferred length of the messages is presented in Table 2. Table 2. Distribution of Respondents according to their Preferred length of the Messages Sl. No. Preferred frequency of the messages Number (n=200) Percen tage 1. 100 words 7 3.50 2. 150 words 19 9.50 3. 180 words 13 6.50 4. 200 words 4 2.00 5. As per the regular length (50 – 100 words) 157 78.50 Total 200 100.00 It could be seen from Table 2 that a vast majority (78.50 %) of the respondents stated that the present regular length of the messages was their choice, followed by 9.50 per cent of the respondents preferred their choice of length as 150 words per message. Preference on the Language Usage It was found out that little less than half (48.00 %) of the respondents preferred the message strictly to be their local language, followed by 21.50 per cent of the respondents stated that the Farmers’ Preferences for Mobile Agro Advisory Services 5815 scientific terminologies can be included in messages. Mix up of English with local language was preferred by about one tenth of the respondents (19.00 %). The rest 11.50 per cent of the respondents stated that they are not very specific with the use of language with regard to the SMS based advisories. Form of the Messages The distribution of respondents according to their preferred form of the messages is presented in Table 3. Table 3. Distribution of Respondents according to their Preferred form of Messages (n=200) Sl. No. Form of Messages Number* Percen tage 1. Text alone 200 100.00 2. Voice alone 97 48.50 3. Video alone 112 56.00 4. Picture alone 105 52.50 5. Text to be supported with audio 130 65.00 6. Text to be supported with Video 137 68.50 7. Text to be supported with pictures 145 72.50 (* multiple responses) It is clear that 100 per cent of the respondents preferred only text based messages, followed by nearly three-fourth (72.50 %) of the respondents preferred text messages with pictures, 68.50 per cent preferred as text to be supported with video, 65.00 per cent preferred as text to be supported with audio. Fifty six per cent of the respondents preferred only video messages, followed by picture alone (52.50 %) and 48.50 per cent of the respondents preferred voice alone. Message Channel The distribution of respondents according to their preferred message channel is presented in Table 4. Table 4. Distribution of respondents according to their preferred message channel (n=200) Sl. No. Preferred frequency of the messages Number Percen tage 1. SMS 200 100.00 2. Whatsapp 77 38.50 3. Telegram app - 0.00 4. Viber app - 0.00 5. E mails 47 23.50 6. Other social media tools like FB / Twitter / Blogs / Linkedin / others 47 23.50 (* multiple responses) Journal of Extension Education 5816 It is revealed from Table 7 that 100 per cent of the respondents preferred to receive messages through SMS, followed by 38.50 per cent of the respondents preferred whatsapp mode and 23.50 per cent of the respondents preferred emails and social media tools like facebook as their choice of channels. The findings reveal that 100 percentage of the respondents preferred follow-up messages. Even though 100 percent of the respondents preferred only follow up messages, 14 respondents were also willing to receive the same messages repeatedly. Their preference on the choice of technical information was also stated. They stated that they were very much willing to receive technical messages on seed varieties, cultivation techniques, marketing, application of fertilizers, weather forecast and crop protection. Futher, the above 14 respondents were found to differ in their preference on the frequency of message repetition such as once, twice and thrice. Here 13 per cent of the respondents stated that they were willing to receive the same message in one week interval and the remaining respondents preferred 15 days interval. CONCLUSION This study assessed the farmers’ preferences of mobile agro advisory services in Tamil Nadu. According to the findings, messages on crop disease, fertilizer application, pesticides and advance warning of weather risks of the messages were felt as adequate, relevant and timely messages by the farmers. But messages on new crop varieties, seeds, cold storage, transportation and export price were felt as inadequate, irrelevant and untimely by the famers. Most of the farmers preferred to receive messages on daily basis and during morning hours. Farmers preferred the regular length of the messages and strict use of local language (75- 100 words). They preferred text form of messages through SMS mode. Timeliness is a factor that impacts agricultural information to a great extent. Late or too early messages do not have much utility for the farmers. In addition to text messages, picture, voice, video text to be supported with pictures and voice based services need to be initiated to make them more interactive and be in line with the changing needs of the next generation users and mobile phones. Agricultural information should be beyond the regular length of the messages to provide clarity of information for the farmers. REFERENCES Jayanthi, M. & Asokhan, M. (2016) Constraints faced by M-Kisan users. Journal of Extension Education, 28(1) NSSO.(2005). Situation assessment survey of farmers: Access to modern technology for farming. National sample survey, 59th round Report, 499 (59/33/2). New Delhi: GOI. Farmers’ Preferences for Mobile Agro Advisory Services 5817 Rebello, J. (2010). Indian Cell Phone Penetration to Reach 97 Percent in 2014. Retrieved from http://www. isuppli.com/ Mobile-and-Wireless- Communications/News/Pages/India- Cell-Phone-Penetration-to-Reach-97- Percent-in-2014.aspx. Wade, R.H. (2004) Bridging the digital divide: New route to development or new form of dependency, New York: Oxford University Press. Journal of Extension Education