Information And Communication Technologies Use Among Farmers In South-East Agro-Ecological Zone, Nigeria.:- Okwusi Moses C

ABSTRACT The study investigated Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) use among farmers in the South-East Agro - ecological zone, Nigeria. Three States: Abia, Akwa-Ibom and Anambra, were randomly selected for the study. Three agricultural zones were randomly selected from the states apart from Abia State with only three zones. From the three agricultural zones, one block each was randomly selected. From each block, one circle was randomly selected and thereafter, 30 farmers each were randomly selected. In all, 270 respondents were involved in the study. The study employed the use of interview schedule for collection of data. Descriptive statistics and regression models were used for data analysis. It was revealed that the following ICTs: Radio (100%), Television (TV) (99.3%), Global System of Mobile Communication (G.S.M) (98.5%) and Computer 968.1%) were available in the study area while Fax (4.1%), Internet (31.1%), Telephone (38.5%) and CD-ROM (12.6%) availability were so much minimal in the study area. TV (means = 2.67), Radio (mean = 2.5) and G.S.M.(Mean = 2.32) were highly utilized by farmers in agricultural information exchange. ICTs to a large extent helped the respondents in the following areas of their business: market information, information about rural development programme and subsidies, general agricultural news, input price and availability and communication between farmers, research and extension. It was also, revealed that only few of farmers had the knowledge and skill on how to make use of fax (6.3%), computer (22.0%), e-mail (22.9%) and CD-ROM (4.8%) for agricultural purposes. Four variables (age, education, marital status, and income) were positively related to the use ofICTs at 0.05 significant levels with t-values 11.068, 3.185, 3.747 and 3.421 respectively. The study further revealed that internet use had a direct significant relationship at 0.05 significant levels with t-value of 3.462 between accessibility and use of agricultural information among farmers. The extent ofuse ofICTs by farmers was dependent on the capability in use ofICTs by farmers, availability of ICTs to the farmers, cost of access to ICT resources and electricity supply. Apart from Radio and TV, majority of the farmers were not capable of using other ICTs (especially Computer Networking) for the purpose of agricultural information exchange. Based on the findings, the study recommended among others, that government should endeavour to provide ICTs both in urban and rural areas and stable electricity supply. Intensive training in the use ofICTs should be organized to all farmers, massive public awareness campaign should be conducted among farmers articulating the use as well as relevance of ICTs in agricultural information exchange, before ICT services are set-up in any region; on the job training on ICTs be giving to extension agents for better facilitationinformation relevant to agricultural development be well packaged and interpreted in local languages. Furthermore, government should intervene in the cost of ICT resources (making it very cheap) to enable farmers have access to ICTs