Under the existing ICT initiatives, efforts are being made to improve agricultural productivity by facilitating the advances in agricultural technology such as package of practices to reach farmers through publications, broadcast media (Radio and Television), organizing seminars and gatherings and web sites. However, there is very little knowledge available on their ability to meet the farmer needs, actual usage of ICT by farmers, and the ultimate impact of the initiatives on the farmers. Localization issues, issues relating to provision of content in required languages etc are yet to be fully researched. Generally, it is observed that the some ICT initiatives are designed and implemented with supply-driven approach with limited participation of the farmers. The result is that the facilities are created but their usage is limited, consequently, the major improvement in the conditions of the farmers is still to be achieved. The ICT initiatives need to be assessed on aspects of access, quality of contents, reliability of service and sustainability of operations. Sustainability, acceptability, simplicity and current & timely information base for the agriculture operations undertaken by farmers right from crop choice to marketability including transportation and logistics needs to be addressed in location specific manner.

Hence, there is a need for a comprehensive assessment of major ICT initiatives in the country to understand their success, failure and gaps. Review of best practices in India and abroad also need to be studied to benchmark and suggest the way forward on design and implementation of ICT initiatives which meet the farmers’ expectation and needs. The ICT initiatives which aimed to achieve the objectives of addressing some of the critical information needs of the farmers need to be assessed to ascertain whether they have been successful in achieving the objectives. Further, it needs to be study as to which factors have contributed to achieving the objectives or otherwise and what needs to be done to make the ICT initiatives more effective so that they can address the farmers’ need more effectively and more efficiently.