Agricultural Call Centres: An Overview Of 1920 Agricultural Advisory Service Usage, Sri Lanka

Abstract

The 1920 Agricultural Advisory Service (AAS) was introduced in 2006, as an ICT initiative of agricultural extension in Sri Lanka. There are no studies assessing the long-term usage of AAS by the community. Therefore, secondary research was carried out to identify the trends and patterns in 1920 AAS usage. Data were collected from internal databases, records, seasonal reports of National Agriculture Information and Communication Centre (NAICC), journal articles and web sources. Results revealed an increasing trend of receiving queries from 2006 to 2012 and, from 2016 to 2018. The trend was decreasing from 2012 to 2015. By the end of 2018, AAS has received 546,473 queries since its inception. Queries on fruits, vegetables and subject specific matters have been highest for several years. The highest number of queries was regarding ‘cultivation’ matters and queries from Colombo district was the highest in every year. There was no seasonal variation of the total number of queries received. Peak hours of AAS were from 8.00 am to 10.00 am where it served 31.6% of the total queries received per month. This study revealed several avenues for primary research. A detailed field level studies on the parameters claimed for the highest number of queries will be helpful to plan tailor-made extension programs. Mapping of queries received by AAS will provide a valuable information source for the policy makers in designing field extension programmes in Sri Lanka.