Extension Workers’ Attitude towards e-Agriculture: A case study from Bangladesh

Subject Areas : Information Technology in Agriculture

Mohammad  Sarker ¹ (Professor Department of Agricultural Extension Education, Bangladesh Agricultural University, Mymensingh, Bangladesh)
Asif  Kaiser ² (MSc Student Department of Agricultural Extension Education, Bangladesh Agricultural University, Mymensingh, Bangladesh)
Md. Abdul  Miah ³ (Professor Department of Agricultural Extension Education, Bangladesh Agricultural University, Mymensingh, Bangladesh)

Received: 2018-06-06 Accepted : 2019-07-16 Published : 2019-09-01

Keywords: extension workers, e-Agriculture, and farm information,

Abstract :

e-Agriculture is being the utmost desire for the sustainable development world over. The research was designed to assess extension workers’ attitude towards e-Agriculture in general. The methodology of this study is an integration of quantitative and qualitative methods based on primary data collection. The study was conducted in two upazilas (sub-districts) of Mymensingh district, namely Mymensingh Sadar and Fulbaria. Data were collected from 78 Sub-Assistant Agriculture Officers (SAAOs) out of total population of 78 following whole population sampling . The empirical data for the study were collected by using distributed questionnaire during weekly conference day at their respective sub-district headquarters. Extreme majorities (94.9 percent) of the extension workers were found to have moderately favourable attitude and 3.8 percent had highly favourable attitude towards e-Agriculture. On the other hand, only 1.3 percent of the SAAOs had slightly favourable attitude towards e-Agriculture. The findings also revealed that, annual income, knowledge on e-Agriculture, access to ICT facilities and use of media associate with e-Agriculture of the SAAOs had positive and significant relationships with their attitude while age and service tenure of the SAAOs were found to have significant negative relationships with their attitude towards e-Agriculture. However, level of education, family size, information sources regarding e-Agriculture, training received on e-Agriculture and job satisfaction of the SAAOs did not show any significant relationship with their attitude towards e-Agriculture.

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