ABSTRACT
Indore has gained global recognition for producing high-quality potatoes. Burgeoning demand, rapid urbanization, and a rise in the fast food industry are propelling new market avenues for value-added processed products, thus opening up opportunities in the national and international markets. As a result, farmers are finding it remunerative to grow processing varieties of potatoes. There is a huge potential for dehydrated potato chips, cubes and other products which can be easily prepared at the small-scale industry level and can provide employment to the rural youth and village women. One potential mechanism to boost such value-added activities and increase farmers’ incomes is the adoption and use of efficient marketing information. Access to such information can act as levers that boost smallholders’ participation and can get them connected to better markets. The chapter explores the marketing information system among the potato farmers in the district of Indore and tries to understand the pattern of utilization of information by the potato growers. It goes further to comprehend the challenges farmers face in accessing information and finds out the role of communication technology in the overall information systems. The analysis shows that a majority of farmers, almost 88% use mobiles, kiosks, and the internet for information, whereas 34% of them use traditional media, indicating an enhanced and strong reliance on modern communication technologies. Prices in local markets still remain the most sought-after aspect, with 92% of the respondents ranking it as first. Farmers’ never-ending effort to produce the best quality and quantity was ranked second. Regression results show that with an increase in education, the tendency to use ICT for acquiring information increases, while it goes down with an increase in age. Lack of reliability and poor understanding of information were cited as the top two constraints in using the information acquired through ICT sources.
