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Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations (ICRIER), Working Paper No. 246, February, Surabhi Mittal, Sanjay Gandhi and Gaurav Tripathi (2010)

 “Field investigations conducted from August 2008 to November 2008 in the states of India where mobile-enabled agricultural information service providers are operating, show that mobile telephones are being used in ways that contribute to agricultural productivity improvements, implying that along with improvements in supporting infrastructure and capacity building, mobile telephony can help in disseminating information to realize much needed productivity gains in agriculture.

Decelerating agricultural productivity is one of the major constraints facing Indian agriculture today. The lack of public invest­ment in agriculture and in agricultural re­search over the last two decades has resulted in poor yield increases and decline in productivity of land. In addition, public extension services, important for raising productivity, are also crumbling. In this scenario, small and marginal farmers who form the bulk of the farming population, often face the problem of poor access to agriculture-related information. In order to catalyse agricultural productivity and raise rural income, it is therefore essential to address the challenges posed by “infrastructure constraints, supply chain inefficiencies and significant problems in the diffusion of and access to information”. In this context, mobile telephony can act as a medium to improve access to information about agricultural techniques and inputs as well “complement the role of extension services in the country”. Several studies show that the adoption of mobile telephony by farmers, agricultural traders and fishermen help reduce transportation and transaction costs, reduce wastage, bring about better coordination between supply and demand and hence increase revenue. 

Surbahi Mittal, Sanjay Gandhi and Gaurav Tripathi carry out field investigations in five states and one union territory of India to evaluate the impact of mobile telephony and mobile-enabled services on farm productivity and farm earnings. The fieldwork consisted of a series of focus group discussions and individual interviews with “farmers, fishermen, laborers, traders, commission agents..”. Of the 187 farmers interviewed from eleven districts and twenty villages, the majority (152) are small farmers owning less than 6 acres of land. The states of Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Rajasthan and New Delhi were chosen as mobile-enabled agricultural information services are available only in these states. The authors also evaluate the impact of mobile-enabled services on fisher community based in the union territory of Pondicherry.

The findings from the fieldwork point to the fact that of the range of information required by farmers, the small farmers valued information related to “weather, plant protection.., seed information and market prices as the most important”. Further, the nature of the information accessed on mobile closely mirrors the kind of information accessed from traditional information sources. This implies that mobile-based agricultural information services have great potential to act as an instrument of information dissemination. More importantly, the study also shows that several farmers feel that “mobile telephony had the potential to be a more reliable source to obtain information as compared to other available sources”. For this it is necessary that the information provided by service providers is timely, customized to meet specific needs of farmers.

In terms of the benefits derived from mobile usage, the study shows that these were largely on account of improved access to information on best cultivation practices, “seed variety selection, protection from weather related damage, handling plant disease and price realisation”. Mobile telephony, both as an information platform as well as a communication device, also helped agricultural traders, large farmers, fishers derive several benefits.

The extent of benefits derived from mobile telephony however are not uniform across different categories of farmers or between farmers from different regions.

The authors point out that the large farmers seem to “derive greater value from their access to information on market prices and in dealing with input and disease problems” than the small farmers. Among the small farmers, the wealthier ones from the state of Maharashtra reported deriving a range of benefits including increase in yield increase, better price realisation and increased revenues. Their less wealthy counterparts in Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan, on the other hand, gained mainly in terms of improved yield.

The differences in reported benefits are, to a large extent, explained by the severity of constraints faced by farmers of different regions. Thus, as compared to farmers in Maharashtra, for small farmers in Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan “challenges in terms of infrastructure gaps, access to credit” are the main barriers that hinder them from realizing the full potential gains of mobile accessed information.

In this context, the study shows that infrastructure constraints like lack of availability of critical resources, inadequate irrigation and crop storage facilities and poor physical access to markets prevent small farmers from using mobile accessed information effectively. Similarly, non-availability of institutional credits is another major constraint faced by small farmers. This restricts the “use of improved seeds, fertilizers and modern technical know how” and has adverse impact on agricultural production.

Overall, the authors conclude that mobile telephony holds great potential to enhance agricultural productivity. As a communication device it enables easy “access to information sources that may not otherwise be reachable”. And as a platform to receive information, mobile phones helps to “get connected to new knowledge and information sources not previously available with the possibility of real-time, highly tailored information delivery”. This initial impact assessment shows that mobiles phones are being increasingly used in Indian agriculture and are improving productivity. However, small farmers are not able to leverage the potential benefits.

It is therefore imperative that increase in agricultural investment, policy change to increase access to institutional credit for small farmers, increased extension services are carried out so that the full potential benefits offered by mobile technology can be used to increase overall agricultural productivity and increase rural income.