Fourth Industrialization phase is flooded by technologies. Information Communication and
Technologies (ICTs) has rooted up in every field. Agriculture, considered to be the mainstay of
our country has started to deploy ICT’s in every aspects. Agricultural society has moved from
industrialized society to information society. Society could be better informed as a result of
developments in ICT. The relationship between farmers and extension agents should be strong so
that betterment would happen. Information Communication Technology (ICT) tools especially
agricultural mobile apps have step forward to reduce the digital divide among the farmers. Tamil
Nadu Government has launched “uzhavan” mobile application as a tool to facilitate outreach
services to farmers. The present study “Assessment of the utility behavior of uzhavan app among
farmers and extension officers in Tamil Nadu” was designed to find out who were all the users of
uzhavan app, to determine the usage pattern and changes felt by uzhavan app users (Farmers and
Extension officers) in Tamil Nadu, to identify the factors influence the usage of uzhavan app by
the farmers, to assess the reasons for non-adoption of uzhavan app by the farmers, to find the
farmers and extension officers perception about the uzhavan app, to document the constraints in fourth (76.67%) of the extension officers stated that extension personnel should undergo
specialized training on ICT and majority (93.33%) of the extension officers had disseminated the
information regarding the availability of uzhavan app by conducting awareness campaign at public
places like bus stands, colleges, union office etc. Regarding the profile of non-uzhavan app users
(farmers), majority of them were found to be male, belonged to old age group, had undergone up
to middle school education, performed agriculture+ labor as their regular activity for generating
income, had more than 30 years of experience in agriculture, marginal farmers (< 2.5 acre of land
holding), earned annual income of less than Rs.75, 000, medium sized nuclear family, that majority
(70.00%) of the non-users did not have any social participation and more than half (56.67%) of
the non-users had contacted extension officers rarely by exhibiting low frequency of contact and
two-fifth (40.00%) of the non-users had medium level of mass media utilization. Mainstream
(43.33%) of the non-users had devoted their time (1-2 hours/day) on their smart phone, more than
half (53.33%) of the non-users were aware of the existence of uzhavan app.
More than four-fifth (83.33%) of the users (farmers) downloaded the uzhavan application
immediately, as soon as they came to know about uzhavan app and its salient features. one-fifth
(22.22%) of the users had utilized seven subjects/sections present in the uzhavan app and none of
the users had stopped their utilization with one subject. Majority (56.67%) of the users often
pursued subsidy scheme section present in the uzhavan application. Overwhelming majority 85.56
per cent of the uzhavan app users felt that they had acquired more knowledge in agriculture after
using the uzhavan app and their time for searching the agricultural information has been greatly
reduced (78.89%), nearly three-fourth of the users (74.44%) sensed that uzhavan app has created
more awareness regarding the availability of agricultural subsidy schemes. Two-fifth (43.33%) of
the extension officers, used the uzhavan application for 6-10 minutes per day and 56.67 per cent
of the users had the habit of using uzhavan app, at the rate of once per day. Absolutely 100 per
cent of the extension officers realized that time has been greatly reduced for disseminating
information regarding agricultural schemes with the help of uzhavan app. The research revealed
that the more than half (53.34 %) of the uzhavan app users (farmers) had medium level of
perception towards the uzhavan application and Majority (40.00%) of the extension officers had
perceived uzhavan application at medium level. Operability, accuracy, readability, directness, timeliness, creditability and reliability were
the most influencing factors of utilization of uzhavan app by the farmers in Tamil Nadu. Among
them ‘operability’ was considered to be the most important influencing factor on utilization of
uzhavan app as perceived by the farmers in Tamil Nadu which caused 15.42 per cent variability
followed by accuracy with 11.53 per cent variability. The study also exposed the major reasons
for non-adoption of uzhavan app, half (50.00%) of the non-users had lack of interest on using the
uzhavan application followed by 46.67 per cent of the non-users were not even conscious about
the presence of uzhavan application and more than one-third (36.67%) of the non-users do not
trust the mobile applications, they had the intent that mobile application will not be valid and
reliable.
Out of twenty one variables, four variables viz. social participation, session of usage of
uzhavan app, type of network, frequency of usage of uzhavan application were statistically
significant at 5 per cent level and three variables viz. educational status, extension agent contact
and mass media utilization were statistically significant at 1 per cent level. The R2 value was 0.788
which revealed that 78.80 per cent of variation in the utility perception was explained by all the
twenty one independent variables selected for the study. The overall influence of the independent
variables on the dependent variable was shown by the value of F-statistics (23.404) which was
highly significant at 1 per cent level of significance. Absence of autocorrelation was shown by the
low value of Durbin-Watson constant (1.952); which means that the regression model was well
postulated since important variables were encompassed.
Lack of training (92.22%), inadequacy of Agricultural news (84.44%), weather forecast is
not at real time (76.67%), uzhavan app is functioning only at online mode (71.11%), deficiency of
information about allied activities (64.44%), lack of content updation (52.22%), dearth of ecommerce
platform (46.67%), no videos and gallery about agricultural practices (40.00%) and
agricultural news were not region specific (25.56%). were the constraints faced by farmers in
operating uzhavan application. Regarding the constraints faced by extension officers in operating
uzhavan application, lack of training (93.33%), weather forecast is not digitalized (86.67%),
absence of offline mode of uzhavan app (70.00%), no special section for value addition of
agricultural products (63.33%), lack of IT literacy level of end users (50.00%), lack of
warning/notification about seasonal pest (43.33%), some content of the uzhavan app were not regularly updated (36.67%) and no feedback from the users after using uzhavan app (26.67%) were
the constraints faced by extension officers in operating uzhavan application.
Training on operation of uzhavan app (95.56%), sufficient agricultural information in
agricultural news section might be provided (83.33%), weather forecast must be digitalized and it
should be on real-time basic/dynamic (71.11%), offline functioning facility for the uzhavan app
should be created (67.78%) and advertisement about uzhavan app should be disseminated through
social media (65.56%) were the major suggestions provided by the farmers for improving uzhavan
application. Some of the major suggestions provided by the extension officers in the study area for
improving uzhavan application were need training on operating uzhavan app (86.67%), weather
forecast must be digitalized and it should be real-time (76.67%), offline functioning uzhavan app
should be created (70.00%), need a special section for value addition of agricultural products
(63.33%) and farm calculator could be added (53.33%).