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Sitting amid half a dozen computer workstations, and three schoolchildren pecking at their keyboards and gazing at cartoon images, Indira recalls the first day she stepped into the community technology center near her farm. “I didn’t even know this center was here. But it is next to the veterinary hospital, and one day my cow was sick,” Indira recalled. “I came from the veterinary hospital, and my friend was working here. I needed a phone number for the doctor, and my friend said, ‘why don’t you just look in the computer, we have all the information.’”
Indira’s first visit to the Village Knowledge Center (VKC) years ago was followed by many more. The visits slowly grew into collaborations — not only for information about her cattle, but also for finding new ways of earning income such as making and selling soaps in her community. Eventually Indira was hired at the VKC as a “knowledge worker,” one of hundreds of volunteer staff running scores of VKCs throughout the region of Tamil Nadu in southeast India.
Indira’s encounter with the VKC near her village, Nagapattinam, speaks to the value of ICT as a gateway to information valuable for farmers, but also to the value of the centers themselves as social hubs. The information exchanged at the VKCs can do more than help one sick cow based on a chance encounter. It is envisioned that the network can build up the struggling farming and fishing communities of rural India: large-scale farmers can better access market information and significantly increase their profits, and local fishermen can receive accurate data about fish stocks, making their voyages more profitable.
From chance encounters to a regular resource
The network of Village Knowledge Centers sprouting up at remote crossroads throughout Tamil Nadu is part of a concerted effort by the M. S. Swaminathan Research Foundation (MSSRF) to ensure that rural communities are not left behind by the knowledge revolution underway in Indian cities. Assisted by a long-term private endowment, support from the Indian government, and grants from partners like the Microsoft Unlimited Potential program, MSSRF has outfitted some one hundred VKCs: with the work stations and the knowledge workers, and also with an array of trainings, workshops, databases, and public address systems aimed at increasing agricultural knowledge and therefore wealth.
According to Indira and three other knowledge workers interviewed at four VKCs visited, these ICT resources converge to offer a variety of significant financial benefits for farmers.
One windfall is learning about the timing of subsidies. The Indian government provides price supports to farmers as a key element of its managed agricultural economy. The price supports are only offered on certain specified days, however, depending on market conditions. Timely communication and access to this information is crucial. Farmers who don’t know about the subsidies, or learn too late, suffer the consequences of lower payoffs for thei