Information Requirements for Farmers and Search Behavior: A Case Study at Manda Upazila, Naogaon

In recent scenarios, information is badly necessary for daily life. Information is essential in every part of the daily job. Information can be obtained or retrieved from a variety of places. This article focuses on the information needs of farmer groups in rural areas. This research paper fulfills basic required information of rural farmers. This study was conducted using the questionnaire approach, and it revealed that practically all farmers are aware of agricultural facts, as this paper demonstrates. This paper also demonstrates that a greater number of sources use to inform the farmers mainly human assistance. But there have some limitations to reaching information, general to all search groups, were lacking of authenticity and timeliness. The findings show that tailoring agricultural information delivery to farmers' diverse information search patterns is an important consideration for extension programs.

). An assessment of information needs should serve as a starting point for building programs, allowing for the creation of contextually relevant content (Chapman and Slaymaker, 2002;Gereziher & Shiferaw, 2020;Roman & Colle, 2003).
The research's goal is to discover the rural farmers' information needs in the Manda upazila of Naogaon district, as well as some methods and means by which the information may be transmitted to promote the empowerment of the remote farming community through knowledge and economics.

Statement of Problem
Despite the fact that rural farmers have an active role in manufacturing of food, processing, and selling, economic and societal restrictions have limited their expertise of science and technology. Rural farmers have greater agriculture information access than urban farmers, but they face numerous challenges in obtaining information to meet their demands. Agricultural extension activities frequently connect with rural farmers when they visit rural regions to discuss improved technology or access to additional inputs. In a study of farmers in rural areas, in information needs, it found that rural farmers have inadequate access to information need. Rural farmers face inadequate money for cultivating food production which is the main problem in rural farmers (Okwu and Umoru, 2009). The above situation with regard to rural farmer's agricultural information needs and their access to information needs that even more research. The following questions are this research's main emphasis: what are the present information essentials of rural farmers in Naogaon's Manda Upazila? Which sources do they prefer most in seeking information? What are their information seeking attitudes?
Need of the study Naogaon is a district which socio-economic characteristic depends on agriculture. Many people of this area produce agriculture production for living. In order to carry out their daily farming tasks, the rural farmer's community requires numerous forms of information. Farmers' contributions to agricultural production over the year's progress have been acknowledged, and it is required to make proper information available to them in order to improve their productivity. However, the district's rural sections lack adequate information and service centers. Farmers in rural areas lack access to the at the app-ropriate time with the correct knowledge, which results in a delayed progress of the rural farmer community in terms of agricultural development that is long-term. In the Naogaon district, an information support system for the rural farmer's community is a requirement for long-term agricultural development. Rural development can play a significant part in national development in a district like Naogaon, which has an agro-based rural economy. As a result, for the development of rural areas, quick and Information is easily accessible is critical (Ashfaqur and Moyazzem, 2013) because of the present agricultural information system's failure, and the lack of a rural information center/ village knowledge center in the villages of Naogaon, it is critical to consider the diverse information demands of farmers who live in remote places in order to meet the information requirements of villages and farmers to help them better their situation the rural community's socioeconomic, cultural, and overall prosperity in way to construct information or knowledge centers

Objectives
The study's main goal is to determine agricultural information requirements of farmers in rural locations of Naogaon, as well as the socio-economic aspects that sway their information access. The Specific objectives of the study are: a) To learn more about the farmers are looking for several forms of information. b) Finding the informational resources that farmers prefer c) To ascertain the information seeking attitude of farmers.

METHODOLOGY:
The farmers of Manda Upazila in Naogaon district, has been determined here as the study's population. A total of 38 respondents were selected from all the farmers of Manda upazila which was taken care of as the study's sample size. For primary data collection, a structured questionnaire with several items was created and utilized as instruction. Age, marital status, educational level, types of information sought, sources of information consulted, information seeking attitudes, and other socioeconomic factors of farmers were considered for the objective of the study.
The data was gathered from the respondents via a questionnaire. The analyzed data is using descriptive statistics such as frequency counts and percentages. However, the majority of Bangladeshi farmers still lack modern agricultural understanding. They have depicted the current state of ICT in agriculture in order for future consumers of agricultural information (policymakers, other activists include rese-archers, professors, and students) to collaborate. This research presents a database approach that can be used to effectively supply agricultural information in digitally separated geographic areas via Services that are based on your location. The proposed system will aid the government in providing services and access to appropriate digital content to Farmers aren't the only ones that are active in this sector; researchers and others are as well.

Data Analysis and Findings
The collected data were analyzed, classified, and tabulated. The questionnaire based on a set of questions was implied to collect data. In this section, the investigation has been completed only those questions which are essential to conduct the objectives of the study. The study has been shown in different angles through both Tables. The above Table 1 depicts 38 responded returned their questionnaire out of 38 questionnaires delivered with a response rate of 100%.   The details of the result shows in the following     The Table 8 shows the result: Respondents were asked if they had needed any assistance any information or not. All of the respondents (100%) gave answer "yes".

Information-seeking Behaviors
Here is the details result: Those who possess answered to the previous question "yes" are asked again to specify the information seeking frequency. In fact out of 38 respondents, they're all having answered that they need information regarding their professsion. For their convenience they were given three options viz. 'Always', 'Sometimes', and 'Seldom' 44.73% respondents have felt information need 'always' while 55.26% respondents indicated that they need information 'sometimes'. And no one has given answer to information seeking frequency as 'seldom' ( Table 9). This Table 10 shows the details result. Every farmer involves agricultural work. So he/she is looking for information for the agriculture.    A question was posed to the participants to identify the sources of data they used from where they got information whenever they feel the need of infor-mation. They were given four basic sources of information i.e. Haman assistance sources of information, Organization oriented sources of data, Technology Oriented sources of data and Print media sources of data. Within these broader sources of data they were given some other sources of data. They were asked to indicate the usage frequency of sources of data, their reliable rating and satisfaction rate. They were given four options in the case frequency of information viz. always, sometimes, rarely, never. The options for reliable ratings were for them are, reliable, moderate, less reliable and unreliable. Again the options for satisfaction ratings were, fully satisfied, partially satisfied, less satisfied and unsatisfied 73.68% respondents always got information from others farmers 60.52% respondents under survey treated this source of information is quite reliable and 81.57% respondents are fully satisfied with this sources of data 28.94% respondents got information from field workers always and 44.73% information was reliable and 44.73% respondents were fully satisfied 97.36% respondents sometime got information from agriculture office. 73.68% respondents think that information is reliable and 71.05% respondents are partially satisfied 36.82% respondents rarely got information from mobile agriculture service. 7.89% respondents were less reliable and 7. 89% respondents were less satisfied 81.57% respondents sometime got information from Newspaper 68.42% respondents were moderate and 78.94% respondents were partially satisfied ( Table 12). Out of four sector most of the respondents dependent on human assistance. Other sectors are also important as sources of data reckoned by respondents. Four sectors are shown above the Table 13 94.3% respondents under survey think that human assistance as sources of data most effective.
While 63.15% respondents think organization oriented sources of information effective 73.68% respondents think that print media is the effective sources of data 84.21% respondents think that organization oriented sources of information is also effective. This Table 14 shows most of the respondents give answer 'strongly agree', 'agree' about information attitude. Some people give answer 'somewhat agree'. This analysis can be understood from the following Table 31.57% respondents reported that they have strongly agreed regarding searching for a lot of information while 68.42% respondents are agrees in searching for a lot of information 50% respondents agree out of the 38 respondents compare information from difference sources 57.89% respondents strong agree difficult to find right information 44.73% respondents were strongly agree and 55.26% respondents were agree helpful to other who search information.

Major Findings
The main findings of the study are: 1) 100% respondents had information needs.
2) 100% respondents needed information about agriculture. 3) 55.26% respondents needed information sometime. 4) Highest number of respondents 31.57% belongs to the age range of 36-40 5) 84.21% respondents seeking information about crops production. 6) 73.68% respondents always got information from other farmer. 7) 94.3% respondents under survey think that human assistance as sources of information most effective. 8) 57.89% farmers have no idea about Internet / website.

CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS:
The responder uses information on purchasing agricultural land, variety of seeds, pesticides, fertilizer, equipment, weather, harvest, credit, facilities, postharvest, food technology, and market information preservation technologies, according to the study's findings. Information support is also necessary for farmers in rural areas to carry out a variety of activities. As previously stated, the majority of rural farmers lack access to the majority of needed agricultural information. As a result, the use of an ICTbased agricultural information support system is critical for the benefit of the rural farmer community.
The following recommendations may be considered by the policy planners -1) Construction of agricultural club.
2) To set up Govt. fund and donation for the farmer.
3) To establish of agricultural library and resource center in remote area. 4) Arrangement of workshop on agricultural information literacy. 5) Developing regional farmer's community. 6) Adaption Technology is gating Agricultural information. 7) Mass media should regularly disseminate information to farmer's community. 8) To increase necessary information on production technology that involves cultivating, fertilizing, pest control, weeding and harvesting.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT:
The researcher specially thanks to Md. Uzzal Hossain, Assistant Professor, Department of Information Science and Library Management, University of Naogaon for his special guidelines with his appreciated time, co-ordination and always for mentoring. This would not complete without his help like as reading of draft as many times.

CONFLICTS OF INTEREST:
The researcher has stated unequivocally that there are no potential conflicts of interest in the investigation, data collecting, data analysis, or writing and publishing of his current work.