An Action Research On Evaluating The Relative Effectiveness Of Selected Smartphone Enabled Modes For Dissemination Of Weather Based Agro Advisories To Farmers

Abstract

This study aims to identify the relative effectiveness of selected smartphone newlineenabled modes viz., Text, Voice and Video in the dissemination of weather based agro newlineadvisories to farmers in terms of knowledge gain and adoption. Further, practice wise newlineadoption of weather based agro advisories disseminated through selected modes by newlinefarmers was studied. Besides, farmers perception towards the effectiveness of selected newlinesmartphone enabled modes for dissemination of weather based agro advisories was also newlinestudied. In addition to that, it aims to find out the factors that influence the knowledge newlinegain and adoption of the weather based agro advisories disseminated to farmers. newlineConstraints faced by the farmers in the adoption of weather based agro advisories newlinedisseminated through smartphone were also studied. newlineThe information on medium range weather forecasts and agro advisories were newlinechosen for testing the effectiveness of selected modes of dissemination of advisories newlineusing smartphone. The crop Paddy was selected for the provision of weather based newlineadvices on cultivation aspects as it was one among the most climate sensitive crops. newlineWestern Zone of Tamil Nadu was purposively selected for the study as high climatic newlinevariability is prevalent relatively in Western zone as compared to other agro climatic newlinezones of Tamil Nadu. The experimental study was conducted in three villages viz., newlineSavundapur, Pudhukaraipudhur, and Kuhalur of Gobichettipalaym block in Erode newlinedistrict. As, ASD 16 Paddy variety was dominant in the study area, a sample of 120 ASD newline16 Paddy variety cultivating farmers, 40 each from the selected three villages who had newlineaccess to smartphone with internet facility were selected as subjects for experimentation. newlineMultiple group random design procedure was adopted in this study. 90 subjects newlineconstituted the treatment group and the remaining 30 subjects constituted the control newlinegroup. Twenty independent variables and three dependent variables (Knowledge gain, newlineadoption of weather based agro advisories and farmers perception towards