THE STUDY OF SOME ICT PROJECTS IN AGRICULTURE FOR RURAL DEVELOPMENT OF INDIA
Pratima Bhalekar Sonali Ingle, Ketaki Pathak · Asian Journal of Computer Science And Information Technology · 2015
Information and communication technology (ICTs) ischanging all the spheres of human lives. Hence it is popular. The application of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in agriculturesector is increasingly important. Agriculture is an important sector with the majority of the rural population in developing countriesdepend ing on it.The agriculture sector faces major challenges of enhancing production in a situation of decliningnatural resources necessary for production. The growing demand for agricultural products, however, also offers opportunities for producers to sustain and improve their livelihoods. Information andCommunication Technologies (ICT) act as a key agent in agriculture sector in addressing these challenges and enrichingthe livelihoods of the poorrural population which depends on agricultural produce. In this paper we studied some of the existing ICT projects in India. Despite the huge potential to harness ICT for agricultural development, only few isolated projects have been initiated in India and few in other parts of the world. Interestingly, many of these projects were started by NGOs, private organisations, cooperative bodies and governmental organisations other than agricultural departments. To formulate a strategy for overall agricultural development, the isolated ICT projects need to be studied and the experiences generated must be documented in order to draw lessons for the future.