E-agricultural concepts for improving productivity: a review

Abstract

In the modern context, Information and Communications Technology can be simply defined as a collection of technologies that assist in storing, processing, dissemination and communication of data or information or both. Thus it includes technologies like hardware and software peripherals which are connected to the internet with the intention of fulfilling the function of communication and information processing. On the other hand, Agriculture is playing a major role in the economy of developing countries like Sri Lanka. Therefore the need to uplift the development of Agriculture is very important. E-Agriculture is a one of such concept that is playing an important part in the enhancement of processes involved in Agriculture. The major role of ICT in Agriculture is its potentiality to aid a wide access to information that will support knowledge sharing and decision making. The usage of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in Agriculture is growing day by day. Within the recent past, probably within a decade, the attitude of farmers towards the accession of agricultural information has changed due to the rapid emergence of networking and ICT technologies. With this emergency, the use of ICT in Agriculture is also increasing day by day. Modern information technologies have the impact to potentially increase the agricultural productivity by transferring knowledge and information to agricultural practitioners from the rural communities. Application of ICT in Agriculture ranges from the need of each of these stakeholders who are directly or indirectly involve in Agriculture. Based on these principals, the application of emerging trends in ICT may be applied to almost all the processes involved in Agriculture as well as related to it. Thus, it will always be helpful in both the product efficiency and process efficiency by means of reducing the cost and time in the functionalities involved in Agriculture.