Usage of Mobile Phone by Vegetable Growers and its Impact on Vegetable Production

Vegetable area is restricted due to pressure of cash and food crops by 0.62 million ha, otherwise vegetable production is included in the cropping pattern of Pakistan. The present study was conducted in district Dera Ghazi Khan for analyzing the factors affecting the usage of mobile phone in vegetable production. Out of four, two tehsils from district were selected by using simple random sampling, then four union councils from each tehsil and three villages from each union council, also selected at random. Due to the limitations of study such as time and financial support five farmers from every village were selected to make a total one hundred and twenty respondents for the study. Most (44.2%) of the respondents of present study were present in middle age group and one out of three (31.7%) of the respondents were young and belong to age group of 15-35 years. Slightly more than one out of four (28.3%) of the respondent were owner-cumtenant. Majority (76.7%) of them were literate at various level and they used smartphone by this they obtain information regarding vegetables. The results of the study disclosed it a positive correlation (0.163) among mobile phone usage (Time) and production of vegetables. Results of the t-statistics in this study showed that maximum mobile usage group had higher yield than minimum mobile usage group. The study recommend that government should plan capacity building programme for the vegetable growers with the collaboration of telecommunication agencies about the applications of mobile handset that will help the grower to increase their production. There is a need to provide trainings to the vegetable growers about using of mobile phone for obtaining reliable and authentic information about vegetables producing for enhanced production.