ICT-enabled agricultural extension: How to promote and sustain?

Abstract

Governments in developing countries have invested in and digitalized various citizen services to obtain significant economic and societal benefits. However, academic and practice literature documented that the success rate of ICT-led development projects has been less than satisfactory. Therefore, this study aimed to find the priority areas where ICTs-based agricultural projects could be successful and propose measurable indicators to consider while designing and developing such initiatives. This study adopted a qualitative research methodology and interviewed eleven (11) top-ranked professionals from ten (10) organizations involved in carrying out several ICT-based projects in agriculture. Responses were analyzed qualitatively using ‘Thematic Analysis’. The analysis revealed a total of forty codes and nine thematic areas (e.g. creating agricultural knowledge hub, providing extension services, developing farmers’ database, initiating capacity building programs, developing Decision Support Systems (DSS) for different segments, developing farming alert systems, agricultural market information system, ICT-based community building, and formulating ICT strategies for agriculture) and proposed five (5) sets of measuring indicators (e.g. economic, quality of life, community development, service quality, technology acceptance) that would be useful in designing and measuring the success of ICT interventions. The findings of this study might help policymakers and Information Systems (IS) developers to identify priority areas for ICT-led interventions along with its success indicators. This study provides further evidence of the importance of considering economic and non-economic drivers of ICT adoption for development. It conveys important insights concerning the success dimensions of ICT-based agricultural projects certainly critical for resource management and livelihoods improvement.