STUDY ON RICE FARMER’S ACCESS TO MARKET INFORMATION VIA MOBILE PHONE AND ITS IMPACT ON THEIR MARKETING ACTIVITIES

Abstract

The study focuses on the prospects of using a mobile phone as an information and communication tool in receiving market information by farmers. The objectives of this study were to describe the farmers' socio-economic characteristics, identify the factors that affect farmers‟ mobile phone use, and find out the impacts farmers are observing by using a mobile phone in marketing of paddy. The study was conducted at the 5 villages of Debidwar Upazila in Cumilla district. A total one hundred farmers were interviewed through a well-structured interview schedule. The study shows that 79% of the farmers use mobile phone, and education and income has a significant positive effect on the use of mobile. In addition, mobile phone use has several impacts on farmers‟ marketing activities like collecting lots of information at a time, decision making, increasing the bargaining power of the farmers, reducing information search cost, saving time and so on.