Farmers use of Mobile phones in Receiving Agricultural Information towards Agricultural Development

Dr. M. Abul Kashem

Bangladesh Agricultural University Professor Department of Agricultural Extension Education Mymensingh 2202, Bangladesh Tel: +88-091-67401ext. 2547(W), 4547(H) Mobile:+88-01711-957 558 email: kashem1953@gmail.com

Bangladesh At a Glance
Bangladesh is an agricultural country agriculture alone contribute about 25 per cent of the GDP. With an area of 143,998 sq km it has population of about 165 million ( area of Uganda is 241,038 sq km with popn. of about 32 million, while area of Sweden is 450,295 sq km with popn. of about 90 million). Women constitute almost half of the total population More than70 percent of working population are involved in agricultural activities. There are quite a good number of GOs and NGOs are involved in communicating farmers towards agricultural development.

Major GOs work for agricultural development are: DAE, DLS, DoF DAM and BRDB Major NGOs involved in agric. dev are: BRAC, PROSHIKA, RDRS, Grameen Krishi Foundation Gov. organization devoted to transfer agric information is: AIS (Agriculture Information Service)
At present AIS has established 12 AICs across the country with mobile and internet facilities and it has plans to extend AICs to 4500 unions by 2020

Private Mobile and Internet Service Provider to Farmer: D-Net, Banglalink, Palli Phone
D-Net has its own information centres and doing excellent jobs in providing need-based information especially to women and disadvantaged groups of people.

Chronological Dev. of D-Net Activities

2003: Establishment of 13 Information Centre (IC)
(through these centres information were collected for the types of information needed by the women, handicapped people and older people)

2004: Lady in IC was popularly known as Mobile Lady

( ML helped women, disadvantaged people to contact with experts in agric., livestock, fisheries, health & FP and law in the capital)

2005: D-Net received Gender and ICT Award 2008: MLs were given 5 days trg. & their designation were changed to Welfare Information Lady

Facilities Available to WIL

1. Laptop having longer charge facilities 2. Modem for connecting internet for e-mail , Skype & browsing for other purposes 1. Mobile Phone 1. Small printer 2. Digital Camera 3. Stethoscope for measuring blood pressure, and thermometer 4. Rain coat and an umbrella 5. Measuring device for pregnancy risk factors 6. Small photo printer 7. Television, scanner (optional)
( Initially a WIL has to invest BDT 70,000 80,000 on her own)

JIGYASHA(Queries) FARMERS CALL CENTRE one of the major mobile phone operators in Bangladesh launched with the technological support of Agriculture Information Service (AIS), a new service Banglalink Jigyasa (Queries) 7676 which provides suggestions and answers to any queries related to agriculture, vegetables and fruit farming, poultry, livestock, fisheries etc.

Banglalink

The service gives people with easy access to advice and solutions to agriculture-related problems. To avail the service a Banglalink customer needs to dial 7676, talk and get experts advice on the problem. The promotional charge for the service is Tk 2 per minute. This call centre has recently become quite popular with over 5000 callers per day.

There are also other effective utilization of mobile phones in Bangladesh, such as Rural Information Centre (RIC) administered by D-Net, Telemedicine, paying electricity, gas and water bills in the bank, transferring money, students submission of admission documents to universities by sending SMSs.

Through RIC farmers get opportunities for solving practical problems, e.g. diagnosis, control pests, diseases of crops, animals and fishes. Through video conferencing doctors diagnose problems and then send SMS or advise through mobiles for treatment.

The Mobile Phone subscribers in Bangladesh up to September 2010

O perators G ram een Phone Ltd. (G P) Robi Axiata Lim ited Active Subscribers * (m illion) 28.654 11.707

O rascom Telecom Bangladesh Lim ited 18.107 (Banglalink) PBTL (Citycell) 1.907 Teletalk Bangladesh Ltd. (Teletalk) W arid Telecom International L.L.C . (W arid) Total 1.183 3.581 65.142

*The above subscribers' numbers are declared by the mobile operators Source:http://www.btrc.gov.bd/newsandevents/mobile_phone_su bscribers/mobile_phone_subscribers_September_2010.php

100 90 80 70

91.4

89.1 78.9 71.1 69.9

% users

60 50 40 30 20
10.2 10.5 6.2 4.7 12.5 39.5 49.2

10 0

Ne ig h bo ur s

Communication media

Figure 1. Farmers' use o f co mmunicatio nmedia

TV Ne ws pa pe Kr r ish ik at M ha ob ile ph on e

UA O

AE O

VS

UF O

nd In s pu td ea l er

an d

frie

SA AO

Ra dio

Source: Mukta, Karim and Kashem, 2010

Legend: A = Contact with relatives, friends and others B = Contact with Businessman for market information C = Contact with sub-Assistant Agriculture Officer D = Contact with fertilizer dealer E = Contact with word member of union council F = Contact with insecticide dealer G = Contact with progressive farmers H = Contact for transportation of agricultural produce I = Contact with seed dealer J = Contact with land owner or tenant farmer K = Contact with educational institutions L = Contact with NGO workers M = Contact with social welfare organization N = Contact with Assistant Agricultural Extension Officer or Agricultural Extension Officer O = Contact with Additional Agriculture Officer or Upazila Agriculture Officer P = Contact with agro-processing industries

METHODOLOGY

The study was conducted in Sadar Upazila (Subdistrict and the lowest administrative unit of the local government in Bangladesh) of Mymensingh district. The mobile phone user farmers of six villages of boira and two villages of Bhabokhali union (the lowest functional unit in Bangladesh) of the Sadar Upazila constituted the population of the study. The total number of the mobile phone user farmers in these eight villages was 305.

About twenty five percent of the farmers were selected as samples following the simple random sampling method. Thus 76 farmers were selected as sample for the present study. Data were collected through pre-tested and pre-designed personal interview schedule during 12 September to 15 October 2009.

Farmers were asked whether their contacts with the input dealers were regular, occasional or not at all (based on the number of times per season) for each of the dimensions. A weight of 2, 1 and 0 were assigned for regular, occasional and not at all responses respectively.

With a view to get a comparative picture on the use of mobile phone for each of the sixteen dimensions a Mobile Phone Use Index (MPUI) was computed by using the following formula: MPUI = Nr 2 + No 1 + Nn 0 where, Nr = Number of farmers using mobile phone regularly No = Number of farmers using mobile phone occasionally Nn = Number of farmers never using mobile phone Thus, MPUI could vary form 0 to 152 where 0 indicates no use and 152 indicate regular use of mobile phone. Each dimension was ranked according to obtained score.

In order to measure the problems faced by the farmers in communicating with the input dealers while using mobile phone each respondent was asked, against 10 pre-identified problems, (problems were identified through Focus Group Discussion FGD) to indicate the extent of problems in a 4-point rating scale such as not at all, low, medium and high with a score of 0, 1, 2, and 3 respectively.

Rank order for each of the problems was computed by developing Problem Facing Index (PFI). The PFI was measured by using the following formula: Problem Facing Index (PFI) = (Ph3) + (Pm2) + (Pl1) + (Pn0). where,
Ph = High problem faced by the farmers while using mobile phone Pm = Medium problem faced by the farmers while using mobile phone Pl = Low problem faced by the farmers while using mobile phone Pn = No problem faced by the farmers while using mobile phone

Thus, PFI of an item could range from 0 to 228, where 0 indicated no problem at all and 228 indicated high extent problem faced.

FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION

Use of Mobile Phones by the Farmers in Receiving Agricultural Information from the Input Dealers
Table 1: Use of mobile phone by the farmers in receiving agricultural information
Mobile phone using farmers Categories (score) Low (up to 10) Medium (11-16) High (>16) Total No. 11 41 24 76 Percent 14.50 53.90 31.60 100.00 14.66 27.53 Mean % CV

Table 2 : R anking of sixteen dim ensions of m obile com unication w the input dealers m ith A spects of using m obile phones A vailability of Inputs 1. 2. 3. 4. A vailability of fertilizers A vailability of seeds A vailability of pesticides A vailability of herbicides 142 131 117 57 1 2 3 13 M I PU R ank order

Q uality of the Inputs Better seeds Balanced fertilizers A ppropriate pesticides A ppropriate herbicides 112 58 76 32 4 12 10 14

M arket price of the Inputs M arket price of fertilizers Price of the dif Price of pesticides Price of herbicides ferent seeds 104 98 94 24 5 6 7 15

A ppropriate dose/Q uantity of Inputs D ifferent fertilizer doses Seed rate of different crops Pesticide doses H erbicide doses 65 79 97 20 11 9 8 16

Table 3: Relationships between the selected characteristics of the mobile phone user farmers and their use of mobile phones in receiving agricultural information (N=76) Dependent variable Independent variables Values of correlation coefficient (r)

Age Literacy Use of Farm size mobile Annual income phone by Organizational the farmers participation Non-localite behaviour Agricultural knowledge Aspiration Self-confidence Attitude towards technology ** significant at 1% level of probability * significant at 5% level of probability

-0.319** 0.320** 0.041 0.260* -0.036 0.465** 0.364** 0.487** 0.441** 0.287*

T a b le P r o b le m s f a c e d b y t h e f a r m e r s w h il e u s in g m o b ile 4: S l. No. P r o b l e m s i n u s in g m o b il e p O o n a i n s c o r e a n k h bte R fo r e a c h o rd e r p r o b le m

1 . H ig h c a l l r a t e 203 2 . D if f ic u lt y in lo a d in g m o n e y t o m o b ile s e t 201 3 . F a ilu r e t o t accot o t h e r m o b i le p 1 8 1n e n ho u s e r s in s t a n t l y 4 . L a c k o f a d e q u a t e m o b ile c r e d it 1 7 2 5 . D a m a g e o f m o b i le 139 6 . L a c k o f r e p a i r in g f a c ilit ie s 131 7 . H ig h c o s t f o r r e p a ir in g 113 8 . M o b ile o p e r a t i n g p r o b le m 75 9 . L a c k o f e le c t r ic it y gf inrg c m o b ile ar o h 69 1 0 . N e t w o r k p r o b le m 32

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

CONCLUSION
Among the sixteen dimensions of contact, farmers had the highest contact with the input dealers through mobile phone in respect of the availability of agricultural inputs, such as fertilizers, seeds and pesticides. Farmers become very anxious to know the availability of agricultural inputs before starting any crop growing season and as such their use of mobile phone with the input dealers topped the rank. Hence, it would be wise if arrangement can be made by the concerned agencies for toll free mobile call, at least up to 2-3 minutes, by the farmers to the input dealers.

More than half (54 percent) of the mobile phone user farmers had medium use of mobile phones while 31 percent had high and only 15 percent had low use in receiving agricultural information from the input dealers.

High call rate, difficulty in loading money to mobile set, and failure to contact other mobile phone users instantly appeared as the top three problems of using mobile phone by the farmers. Arranging toll free call for the farmers in respect of their queries regarding agricultural inputs may be helpful to overcome the problem of high call rate.

Arrangement for more and more flexi load shops in the rural areas may help to reduce the difficulty in loading money to mobile set while increasing the network towers may be useful in reducing the network problem of contacting other mobile phone users for interpersonal communication for exchanging views about agricultural inputs.