Role of e-Agriculture in Developing Agricultural Sector of Bangladesh as Perceived by the Coastal Farmers

Abstract

Electronic Agriculture (e-Agriculture) is part and parcel of global agricultural development. This study was conducted to know the role of e-Agriculture in developing agriculture sector of Bangladesh as perceived by the coastal farmers. Data were collected from 90 randomly selected farmers from Dacope upazila under Khulna district in March, 2020 with the objectives to identify the available e-Agricultural practices adopted by the coastal farmers and to know the role of e-Agriculture in developing agricultural sector, and to find out the constraints in adopting e-Agricultural practices. The role of e- Agriculture was measured by Likert type rating scale with an assigned score, and the farmers' Perception Index was used to explain the relative proportion of the statements related to perception regarding the role of e-Agriculture. Based on citation score, the findings of the study revealed that the mostly adopted e- Agricultural tool was television (75.56%) followed by smartphone (57.78%), social media (47.78%), cell phone (43.33%), climate smart agriculture (40%), etc. The majority of the respondents (41.1%) had perceived the high role of e-Agriculture in developing agriculture sector, followed by 38.9% for medium and 20% for low role of e-Agriculture. It was found that a large portion (80.0%) of the farmers had faced medium to high constraints, and only 20% faced low constraints in adopting e-Agricultural practices. Correlation analysis indicated that among the selected twelve socio-economic characteristics, the respondent's level of education, communication exposure, agricultural training received, innovativeness, knowledge and attitude showed a positive and significant relationship with the role of e-Agriculture, while age, household assets, annual family income, credit received, farming experience and organizational participation had no significant relationship with the role of e-Agriculture in developing the agricultural sector.