Sowing the Seed of Digital Literacy for Agricultural Sustainability
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.19318463Keywords:
Precision agriculture, Environmental sustainability, Climate-smart farming, Resource-use efficiency, Sustainable agricultural practicesAbstract
Digital literacy of farmers has the potential of balancing farm productivity with environmental sustainability. The growing adoption of digital technologies in mobile advisory applications, precision agriculture technology, tools of remote sensing, and data-driven decision-support systems has enabled farmers to practice in a more environmentally sustainable manner. With digital capabilities, farmers will be in a better position to receive real-time data referring to the state of the weather conditions, the health of the soils, pests and diseases, and the wise application of inputs, resulting in a decrease in the unreasonable use of fertilizers, pesticides, and irrigation water. This type of evidence-based decision making improves efficiency in resource-use, reduces the emission of greenhouse gases, and alleviates the ecological degradation. Moreover, online platforms foster a more robust climate-wise and organic farming and sustainable land management practices uptake. Digital literacy advances the economic viability by availing timely access to information in the market and extension support services, which contributes to the long-term sustainability of environmental responsibility. Digital competencies interacting with indigenous and experience-based agricultural knowledge further enhances the adaptive ability of farmers and allows them to respond more effectively to climatic fluctuations and environmental risks. Together, the transformative role of digital literacy in agricultural sustainability is being made in the light of the on-farm behavioural change towards digital literacy adoption and reclaimation which highlights the importance of digital literacy in the deployment of environmentally sustainable agricultural systems in digital era. This analysis of the transformative nature of digital literacy on agricultural sustainability has been prepared along Indian context and has identified some recent reports and case studies. The debate of this paper will be highly useful to farmers to modernize themselves and explore the new hot spots in the plantation world.
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