Analysis of information needs and search behaviour of cashew farmers in non-traditional areas of India: A pilot study

Information plays a crucial role in technology realisation and its utilisation. Farmers invariably require clear, accurate, current and context-specific information for informed decision making. Cashew is an important plantation crop with a long gestation period necessitating the need for long term planning for the sustainable development of farmers’ livelihoods. Considering the importance of the crop to the Indian economy, the present study attempted to understand the information needs of cashew growers, their sources of information and their information search behaviours in non-traditional areas where the crop is gaining prominence. Understanding the information dynamics of cashew farmers who are predominantly smallholders is vital for the extension agents and policymakers to design and implement tailor made extension strategies that benefit the cashew sector. The study highlights that farmers need information on the cashew varieties suitable to their region, crop protection measures such as pests and diseases and non-crop information. Farmers’ information needs with respect to standard agronomic and horticultural practices were found to be less important as most farmers prefer cashew due to less labour intensive nature of the crop. The study results also illustrate that organisational communication channel was a prominent source of information in the study region and most farmers accessed public organisations followed by fellow farmers for information on cashew. The study suggests that farmers prefer personal contact and ICT based methods for information exchange. Using cluster analysis, farmers were segmented based on their information search behaviour and the main search behaviour was moderate search accounting for 65% of the surveyed respondents. Reaching the low search farmers constituting 27% of the sampled farmers should be an important consideration while designing any cashew related extension intervention in the study area.