Each passing day, I am realizing, if I’m not into digital platforms, I am a kind of laggard. I believe, most of you might be thinking alike, to a greater or lesser extent. One can’t afford lagging behind in going digital. As an Agricultural Extension service provider, you too wouldn’t like to be irrelevant.  

Internet-enabled services, including mobile phone and smartphone ownership, are on the rise. The number of users of Social Media channels is growing as well. In the digital space, information delivery is very fast, transaction costs are reduced, and queries are resolved instantly. We found mobile phones were intensively being used by dairy farmers in India to consult veterinarians in particular. The digital world has invaded our lives, no wonder it is impacting farmers and farming too!

Almost every day, we come across a large number of mobile apps for farmers. Some question, do farmer really use these apps? In March this year, I read an interesting article, How useful really are mobile apps for farmers? The article states, “If developers don’t understand how a service fits into farmers’ lives, it can easily happen that these services aren’t effective”. I partly agree with this statement, as many of these apps are not used by farmers. Yet, I couldn’t control myself from developing a mobile app. The pressure to go digital and particularly develop apps is high at my organization, so I too developed a simple app. This app gives information on various aspects of organic livestock farming. I am not sure how many farmers actually use it, but I am happy to be part of the trend! With the rising numbers of smartphones and better connectivity even in rural areas, social media is influencing our lives more than ever before.

My organization-the Indian Council of Agricultural Research has developed several apps in the last two years, including one through my institute. These apps are excellent examples of knowledge management. All the scattered information is collected in one place for a one-stop search of information. Whosoever wishes to know anything on the topic, may benefit from browsing these apps, including farmers. 

It had been found that farmers in India are using WhatsApp aggressively for information sharing. Since July 2016 when I wrote WhatsApp in Agriculture?,  I see Whatsapp use has multiplied, along with its potential in agricultural extension information delivery and sharing. Whatsapp looks even more promising with reduced extension staff. In our study, we found popular social media tools like Facebook, WhatsApp and YouTube were being used for information delivery and sharing across different agriculture subsectors. I am a member of several WhatsApp groups and am even the administrator of some of them. I find it is increasingly becoming popular among farmers. In fact, I learn a great deal being in such groups, especially those managed by farmers.