My family had a farm in a village in Telengana in South-Central
India. Villagers would gather daily around 6:30 in the evening at the Panchayat
(community) building to listen to Krishi Darshan (Farmer’s Voice). The radio, a
valve set operated on electricity to receive broadcasts in the medium wave (MW)
band, was kept in a cupboard under lock and key in the Panchayat building. It
was hooked up to a large, trumpet-like loud speaker, on a wooden pole outside
the structure. The village children would gather in the front, while the male
villagers sat on their haunches on the ground. The Sarpanch (village leader),
who was usually the largest and richest landowner, sat on a wooden chair. There
were rarely women, as they were not allowed to mix with the males socially.
The radio program would last for an hour in the local language,
but usually as spoken (or actually written in the program’s script) by the
highly educated and not in the dialect of the ordinary villager. The villagers
could not fully comprehend the program because of the rather “snooty” language.
There would be a talk on a farming practice and sometimes an interview.
Following the farmers program, there would be broadcasts of folk songs or a
small educational skit. At 8:00, there would be the news and after it, the
session for the village radio would end and the actual radio would be safely
locked in the cupboard. The Panchayat building was one of the few buildings
that had electricity. There was always disappointment when there was no
electricity and the radio could not operate.
This scene reveals a lot regarding ICTs and their access to the
resourceful poor farmer. The control of the ICT in the hands of the Sarpanch,
who also had the only capacity to operate the radio in the village, the
hierarchy, class, caste and gender differences in the village community in the
access to its broadcast, the design, and delivery of content along with the
problems, regarding necessary infrastructure such as electricity needed to
effectively use the technology.
The stranglehold on real control and access to the radio in
villages in India was only broken when lower cost, domestically made
“transistor” radios, were available in the market. Then, the radio could be
owned and controlled by the farmer, so he could carry it to his field and the
women in the family could listen to some of the programs in the evening in the
privacy and seclusion of their homes. Of course, there were several social
concerns expressed on the “bad” influence of the radio on the youth and women
of the village.
The same scene repeated itself when television, initially through
the Satellite
Instructional Television Experiment (SITE) (later through terrestrial broadcast)
was introduced. Instead of the radio in the Panchayat building, there was the
black and white TV set. However, for TV, it took more time to spread in order
to be used by villagers. This was not only because of the cost, but also
because it needed electricity to operate. Not many homes, especially among the
poor, had access to electricity.
However, things changed, when the cost of TV was reduced through
production in India, Cable TV became widespread and electricity connections in
villages became more common. But, on the whole, for contributing to innovating
farming and agriculture, it was largely a missed opportunity in using a
powerful ICT. The content for farming and agriculture, largely from the
government in an initially government-controlled media, were not paid attention
to as an important public function. And, the private sector, with very little
commercial benefit in generating the content, just ignored agriculture until
recently. Now that rural incomes have grown and farmers are becoming consumers
of products such as soap, cosmetics, refrigerators and washing machines, in
addition to tractors and farm equipment.
Ownership of phones in India till late 1990s was only in the hands
of a few. In villages, it was usually the richest that had a phone connection.
All this changed when the public call offices (PCO) were introduced in India.
Soon, all villages had at least one PCO. The cost of making a phone call was
also reduced and almost everybody could use it. Within a few years, the cell
phone was introduced and this brought in the shift in the ownership and control
of the communication device. Along with it, the government introduced policies
that made phone calls affordable by even the poor. Soon, many of the poor
farmers had cell phones which they could use at their will and convenience.
Today India has almost 800 million cell phone connections and is now
ubiquitous.
With cell phones came several new services, including the Kisan
Call Centres where farmers could call up government-run extension services for
assistance on their farming problems. However, certain other issues in access
continued such as the use of cell phones by rural women. In a country where
women provide the majority of the agricultural workforce and many of these manage farms on
their own, not being able to by social barriers use cell phones and other ICTs
is a major constraint for rapid innovation and capacity development needed for
modern farming in the country.
The new generation of ICTs coming into common use in rural India
is the smart phone. The smart phone promises access to the instant messaging,
the World Wide Web, audio and video recording, playback and streaming
capabilities, and the ability to send and receive multimedia while
participating in social media. Some smart phones can even use applications that
can share, exchange and process data while supporting decision-making. This has
the potential to revolutionize access to information from across the world by
farmers. At the moment the same issues as with other ICTs in the past such as
of its access, affordability, the generation and design of the content so that
it is relevant and useful, the capacity to make effective use of the
information are being repeated. Apparently, we need to study the past and learn
from it to be prepared for ICTs to be more useful in the present and the
future.
Ajit Maru is Senior Officer at the Global Forum on Agricultural
Research (GFAR) where he has been pursuing improving information and
communications management and knowledge
sharing in agricultural research and development.
The Global Forum on Agricultural Research (GFAR) brings together
all those working to strengthen and transform agricultural research for
development around the world. During 2014 and the International Year of Family
Farming (IYFF), GFAR is working with Food Tank to showcase and raise awareness
and understanding of the challenges faced by smallholders and help identify
efficient ways to support family farmers.
Written by Ajit Maru
