Information And Communication Technology (Ict) Mediated Open Distance Learning (Odl) Methods For Agricultural Extension: A Case Study From A Drought Prone Area Of Rural South Asia
Dileep Kumar Guntuku, Aruna Sai Kuna, Sreenath Dixit, Venkataraman Balaji · Computers in Agriculture and Natural Resources, 23-25 July 2006, Orlando Florida · 2013
Recurrent droughts affect vast areas of South Asia, and are increasingly becoming a cause forconcern. Information is the backbone of drought preparedness. In order to mitigate the ill effects of drought,there is an urgent need for sustained information, education and social mobilization efforts to reachvulnerable rural communities. ICT mediated ODL methods are being used to enable extension functionaries to gather, store, retrieveand disseminate a broad range of information needed by farmers, thus transforming them from extensionworkers into knowledge workers. The emergence of such knowledge workers will result in the realization ofthe much talked about bottom-up, demand-driven technology generation, assessment, refinement andtransfer. In this paper, the authors present and discuss a case study conducted in a highly drought prone area, onhow an Internet-connected rural access center (operated by a rural NGO) enabled training of rural youth inresource literacy, which in turn led to improved interactions between rural families and experts online. Thestudy indicates that the ICT mediated ODL methods for rural families can bring a significant impact onextension practices, in drought-prone regions of South Asia.