SINHAS Vol 29 No 2 Hritika Rana and Bristi Vaidya

Challenges and Opportunities of Digital Agro-advisory Services for Smallholder Farmers

Hritika Rana and Bristi Vaidya

Abstract
Diverse digital agro-advisory services (DAAS) have been developed to facilitate the exchange of agriculture knowledge to and from the farmers. However, it has been understudied in Nepal’s context. This study explores the opportunities and challenges associated with the use of mobile-based agriculture application—GeoKrishi—by understanding farmer’s perspectives and experiences. It does so by analyzing the survey with fifty farmers from Kageshwori Manohara Municipality of Bagmati Province, Nepal, who had prior knowledge of GeoKrishi. Findings reveal that not all farmers who had knowledge about the application chose to adopt it. Farmers identified various opportunities after using the agro-application, including cost-effectiveness, timely and two-way communication with experts, and improved negotiation skills due to instant access to market information. However, challenges of “design-reality gaps” persist. Farmers faced the obstacles such as inadequate training on the application’s prerequisites and usage, lack of smartphone ownership, limited digital literacy, insufficient contextual information, and the need to share phones with family. This paper concludes that current big data communication in agriculture often marginalizes farmers’ needs, allowing extension experts to dominate decision-making. It calls for a shift to a human-centered design approach, emphasizing farmer involvement, alongside enhanced training, local contextual integration, and interrelated technologies to improve the effectiveness of digital agro-advisory tools.

Keywords: Agriculture extension, digital agro-advisory, ICT for agriculture, smallholder farmers, technology adoption