ICTs for Agricultural Extension in India: Policy Implications for Developing Countries

ICTs are changing all the spheres of human lives. Hence, it is a popular belief that, agricultural extension also no exception to this. It is also expected that the ICT led extension systems are going to act as a key agent for changing agrarian situation and farmers’ lives by improving access to information and sharing knowledge. Hence, renewed enthusiasm to use new ICTs for agricultural advisory services led to mushrooming of e-initiative pilots in India. Development practitioners are experimenting innovative ICT initiatives exclusively for agricultural information and knowledge delivery. Unlike other sectors, agriculture is a complex, more so agricultural extension, hence, there are some projects shown the way forward and continue to grow and most other projects are floundering after few years of operation. Large number of projects stuck as pilots only and very few continuously innovated, replicated and sustained over the years. However, the variety of ICT initiatives are also added lot of lessons to take future course of action. With the available practical lessons, it is time to move forward in integrating ICTs and Information and Communication Management (ICM) in agricultural extension. Further, ICT capacity building in agricultural research and extension systems, location-specific content generation and digitization, integration of research-extension and IT technology solution providers, integration of pluralistic extension actors, blending ICTs with traditional extension methods, continuous innovation and refinement need be followed with commitment and accountability are crucial for sustaining momentum in the agricultural advisory services by the ICTs. This article is concise review ICT projects implemented since 1990’s in India, elaborates best practices and its ingredients for success and also draws policy implications for the effective ICT based agricultural advisory services in developing countries.