EMPOWERING FARMERS THROUGH e-AGRICULTURE

Abstract

Empowerment is being the utmost desire for the sustainable development all over the world. The research was designed to investigate the impact of e-Agriculture on empowerment stratified as economic, family and social, political, knowledge and psychological empowerment. The methodology of this study is an integration of quantitative and qualitative methods based on data collection in Bhatbour Block of Dhighi union under Sadar Upazila of Minikganj District. Data were collected from 133 e-Agriculture users and 45 controls from September 10 to October 25, 2015. Descriptive statistics, t-test, Multiple regression (B) were used for analysis. Most of the farmers (53.4 percent) gained low empowerment through e-Agriculture, while 46.6 percent of them had medium empowerment. None of the farmers were highly empowered. Among the influential variables- farm size, usages of e-Agriculture, attitude towards e-Agriculture, organizational participation, cosmopoliteness and availability of e-Agriculture were positively significant and provided 88.4 percent contribution on empowerment.