CONSTRAINTS FACED BY FARM WOMEN IN ACCESSING AND UTILISATION OF DIGITAL EXTENSION SERVICES

Over the years, the role of farm women is prominent in Indian Agriculture. Myriad numbers of digital based extension services are operating in the domain of agriculture to hasten the on-time delivery and disseminate the customized information to the farming community. The present study was conducted during 2021, aimed at understanding the profile characteristics of farm women accessing the digital extension services and constraints faced by the same in three Zones of Telangana state. Majority of the respondents were middle aged (66.70%) who can read and write (59.00%), possessed marginal landholding (81.70%) with medium farming experience (52.50%), belonged to under lower-middle annual income category (56.70%), less e-ready (46.70%), medium level of access to Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) services(38.30%), higher level of frequency of use of ICT services(46.70%),while low internet in the rural areas (81.67%),low level of literacy among women farmers (80.00%), dual role of farm women(76.67%),lack of training and skill in handling(70.83%) and difficulty in utilizing the ICT based gadgets and services (66.67%)were the major constraints identified and are the bottlenecks for the effective utilisation of the digital extension services by farm women. The study highlights the efforts at various levels to address the constrains in order to effectively reach out to maximum extent of women farmers so that, women farmers can reap the benefits of the Digital Extension Services and agriculture development can be possible.