Impact On Small Farmers and Fishermen Through Use Of Mobiles in India

Telecommunication and more specially mobile phones have the potential to provide solution to the existing information asymmetry in various lagging sectors like Agriculture. India’s agricultural sector suffers from low growth rates and low productivity. Issues in access to information is a week point at every stage of the agrisupply chain. For small farmers base economy like India, access to information can possible enable better incomes and productivity to the farmers. This paper through focus group discussions and in-depth interview with farmers in villages of India, has tried to find answers to the use and impact of mobile and mobile enabled services on agricultural productivity. The answers to these questions are of relevance to develop better policy environment conducive for the small and medium farmers and has implications for mobile operators, for information service providers, and for policy-makers. The results show that although, mobiles can act as catalyst to improving productivity and rural incomes, the quality of the information, the timeliness of the information and trustworthiness of the information are the three important aspects that has to be delivered to the farmers, to meet there needs and expectations. There exist critical binding constraints that restricts the ability of the farming community to realise gains at full potential and this is more for the small than to large farmers.