Strengthening Pluralistic Agricultural Information Delivery Systems in India

The study on agricultural information flow has revealed that only 40 per cent farm households access information from one or the other source. The popular information sources among farmers have been reported to be fellow progressive farmers and input dealers, followed by mass media. The public extension system has been found to be accessed by only 5.7 per cent households. Only 4.8 per cent of the small farmers have access to public extension workers as compared to 12.4 per cent of large farmers. The sector-wise study on the type of information, sought has revealed that a majority of the farmers have sought information on seed (32-55%) in the cultivation sector; on health care (26-54 %) in animal husbandry; and on management and marketing (8-46 %) in fisheries. Regarding adoption of information by farmers, input dealers and other progressive farmers have depicted greater influence mainly due to easy and convenient access to these sources. The study has suggested promotion of farmers-led extension and strengthening of public extension services to improve coverage and efficiency of agricultural information delivery systems.