Farmer’s Access to ICTs Tools and Productivity Enhancement in District Charsadda, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa
Farmer’s Access to ICTs Tools and Productivity Enhancement in District Charsadda, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa
Ayesha Khan*, Mohammad Tariq Aziz, Urooba Pervaiz and Muhammad Zafarullah Khan
ABSTRACT
The access to ICT and utilization of modern techniques can enhance agricultural productivity. ICT can increase and improve access to agricultural information which helps in knowledge sharing and creating awareness. The study focuses on farmer’s access to ICT tools for productivity enhancement in district Charsadda, the universe of the study. For selection of sample multi stage sampling method was used and respondents were selected from three villages namely Hajizai, Katozai and Batagram of tehsil Shabqadar. A sample of 112 respondents was drawn through proportional allocation technique based on 10% of total 1120 registered farmers. A pre-tested and well-developed interview schedule was used to collect primary data. Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) was used to analyze the data. Results indicated that 42% respondents had age above 35 years, literate respondents were 80%, 45.5% had farming experience of 1-10 years, half of the respondents (50.1%) were owners, 40.2% had land size of 5.1-10 acres and the majority (78.6%) is indulged in agriculture as main occupation. All the respondents have knowledge about ICTs but 55.4% had access to internet and the tools used to access internet include mobile (54.8%), DSL (27.5%), telephone (9.7%) and USB (8.0%). In the research area 69.6% respondent know how to use ICT tools while 55.4% applied the information availed from ICT and considered that application of information will bring improvement in agricultural production. Significant association existed between age and access to internet whereas highly significant relationship existed for literacy status and tenancy status with access to internet while non-significant relationship was found with farming experience. It is recommended that farmers’ skills should be upgraded through training on how to use modern ICT tools for getting information and its application in the field to increase adoption and enhance agricultural production.
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