Because, one, ICTs are pervasive and have become/are becoming accessible at a very rapid rate, and two, farmers/agriculturists are probably the most information poor section of the society especially in relation to their needs driven by the inherently uncertain nature of agriculture especially that which is rain-fed (read prevalent in most developing countries and affecting most small farmers, also a large proportion of teh poor of the world). 

To bring the information benefits to farms and farmers and to be able to do so with minimal losses of learning, it makes sense to design national e-agricultural strategies.  Needless to say, these whould include where and how governments would step in and where and how they keep away, letting the most efficient actors operate.

ICTs are touching our lives like never before.Even a few years ago it was difficult to imagine how quickly & deeply they would penetrate rural&isolated areas.The jury is still out on whether ICTs drive rural prosperity of not, however, there is no getting away from the fact that they are there&in our faces.Does it then not make sense to study how they change and influence our societies?In Asia largest number of the world's rural poor reside though it has also seen tremendous increase in mobile phones,it would be useful to see what role ICTs play in the process of rural transformation.How can their power be leveraged to make information a key driver of positive change? ENRAP, a collaborative initiative of IFAD and IDRC, supported ex-post evaluations and action-research pilots in Asia over 2009-1010.A set of interesting findings has just come out and these are available in 6 papers at http://www.enrap.org/research/icts-for-livelihoods-research/icts-for-li…