Information Society Watch

September 2007, Ravi Gupta, I4donline

The agriculture sector in India is suffering from a number of issues which have resulted an alarming decline in the annual rate of growth of agricultural output in the last decade and a half. In this context, the article examines the potential of ICTs to improve the situation. It advocates the need to build an information network specifically tuned towards meeting the knowledge needs of farmers. In addition to building this repository, ICTs can also contribute in the area of agricultural commerce, from marketing systems to price discovery mechanisms, thus providing an umbrella of services which can help take agriculture forward in this hour of need.

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