SERVICES OF FARMERS’ CALL CENTRE (FCC)-ANGRAU IN DISSEMINATION OF AGRICULTURAL TECHNOLOGY IN ANDHRA PRADESH, INDIA

摘要

Agricultural information and technology has to reach yeoman community so as to contribute to country's progress in agriculture. Search and evaluation of effective ways of technology dissemination by Agricultural Extension Specialists is always an uphill task. An innovation in this direction is the establishment of Farmers Call Centre (FCC) through integration of ICT (Information and Communication Technology) and AT (Agricultural Technology). FCC in Andhra Pradesh, first of its kind was established during 2004 and is a collaborative innovation of Acharya N G Ranga Agricultural University and State Dept. of Agriculture, AP. Functioning of FCC is basically through an execution of two-tier system mimicking any other call centre infrastructure. Tier One has operators who are well conversant in local dialect and farmers queries will be received, recorded and further directed to Tier Two comprising technical experts (Scientists) from ANGRAU and personnel from Dept. of Agriculture. Farmers' queries will be readily answered through live communication over wire and the information thus generated on queries and solutions offered will be maintained as a database in back end for future records