E-Agriculture and Smart Farmers. Mobile Phone Use for Agricultural Information

Essay in the subject Agrarian Studies, , language: English, abstract: The key objective of the study is to examine the use of mobile phones by the farmers how smartly they can utilize for their agricularal development. The study is designed to achieve specific objectives, which are: Exploring the use of cell phone pertaining to access and receipt of agricultural information. Investigating the understanding the technology and participation of the farmers in receiving mobile phone based services. Examining the obstacles that the famers face in terms access and getting information related to agriculture products, process. Bangladesh is predominantly an agrarian country. Despite several challenges, the country has achieved self-sufficiency in cereal food production. It is already evident that e-agriculture especially the expansion of mobile phone has tremendously boosted up the agricultural production in Bangladesh. Couples of vibrant mobile based agro advisory initiatives have also been evolved in last decade. The present study has been made to find out the status of the farmers in understanding and participation in access to agricultural information using mobile phone. Ten farmers were randomly selected from Dhamrai upazila of Dhaka district and Manikganj Sadar upazilla of Manikganj district. Semi-structured questionary-based survey, FGD was done.

Dr. Mohammad Rezaul Karim, having experience in developing human resources for about 22 years in public sector, is currently working as Faculty Member at Bangladesh Public Administration Training Centre (BPATC), the apex-training institute for the civil servants in Bangladesh. Dr. Reza studied Public Administration at the University of Dhaka followed by Masters in Human Resource Management at the University of Leeds, England in 2007 and Doctor of Philosophy in Public Policy and Management at the National Institute of Development Administration (NIDA), Bangkok, Thailand in 2015. As a part of his professional responsibility, he disseminates knowledge and experience in training sessions on various issues pertaining to public administration in different courses conducted by BPATC and other training institutes in Bangladesh. Dr. Reza serves as part-time teacher at the Department of Development Studies, University of Dhaka & BIGD, BRAC University and Bangladesh Institute of Governance & Management. He has work experience with UNCHTDF-UNDP, Bangladesh; Naresuan University, Thailand; UK-DFID; JICA Bangladesh for capacity building of public sector employees of Bangladesh, Nepal, Thailand, Afghanistan and Bhutan. He is an experienced researcher in the field of public administration. His recent research issues include career and life, administrative reform politics, gender equality at work, policy analysis and evaluation, changing working culture, work-life balance, gender pay gap, capacity building, social development, education philosophy etc. He has more than 150 (hundred and forty) publications appeared as articles in different national and international peer-reviewed journals, conferences, and books, ebooks, book chapters and commentaries. His contributions on policy analysis, policy implications, public policy implementation, social development, human security regularly appear online at Nepal Institute for International Cooperation and Engagement (NIICE)-Nepal's Independent Think tank, South Asia Monitor (powered by Society for Policy Studies), The Khabarhub (Nepalese News Portal), the Daily Observer, the Financial Express (Bangladesh English daily), the Urbanet (webportal for urban development), the Asia Global Online Journal. Dr. Reza was the editor of Bangladesh Journal of Public Administration. He visited India, Cambodia, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, Lao PDR, Malaysia, South Korea, Thailand, Vietnam, Turkey, UK and USA.