ICT operational self-confidence of the farmers

Realizing the importance of ICT in the development of farmers in the present situation of Science and Technology, now a day, it is expected that farmers should have enough ICT operational or working self-confidence for taking advantages of ICT for their development. It is a fact that higher ICT working self-confidence more will be the chances of exploring ICT tools and services on the job. Considering the significance of ICT operational self-confidence in accelerating the use of ICT amongst the farmers, this study was carried out to understand the level of ICT operational self-confidence of the farmers and the factors responsible behind generation of that self-confidence to operate various ICT tools and services. Ex-post facto research design was adopted for the study. This study was carried out in Anand district of Gujarat. Out of eight talukas of district, five random talukas viz. Anand, Petlad, Sojitra, Borsad and Anklav were selected. From the selected talukas, four random villages where numbers of practicing farmers were higher were selected randomly. Thus, the total selected villages for this study were twenty. Eight to fifteen farmers from each village were selected randomly from each selected village in such a way that total sample size become 200. Pre-tested interview schedule was prepared and personal interview method was used for collection the data from the farmers. Frequency, percentage, arbitrary method and coefficient of correlation were used as statistical tools. From the entire study, it was observed that more number of the farmers were having with medium to very low level of ICT operational self-confidence. Majority of the farmers were confident in operating smart phone, exchanging information through WhatsApp and using farm information source like YouTube. It was also observed that majority of the farmers had less confidence to get land records personally from online source, train other farmer to use internet, operate computer and getting information from I-Khedut portal.Education, annual income, all the selected communicational and psychological characteristics of the farmers had positive and highly significant association with their ICT operational self-confidence.