Socioeconomic determinants and availability of ICT for use among small holder rice farmers in Southeast, Nigeria
Abstract
The study examined socioeconomic determinants and availability of ICT for use among smallholder rice farmers in Southeast, Nigeria. Specifically, it described enterprise characteristics of the farmers, ICT availability to rice farmers, enterprise characteristics and their level of use of ICT. Data were collected with a well-structured questionnaire from 476 randomly selected rice farmers and were analyzed using a combination of analytical tools such as descriptive statistics, Tobit regression, Analysis of variance, correlation and z-test. The result revealed male dominance (61.3%), active age (mean age of 38 years), high percentage of married farmers (65.5%). The mean years of formal education (10 years), mean farming experience was 9 years while the mean household size, farm size and annual income from rice were 5 persons, 11.42 plots, and N426, 499.76 respectively. Also, the primary occupation was majorly (64.5%) farmers. The study equally showed that majority (62.0% and 99.7%) of the farmers sampled in Ebonyi and Enugu were members of farmer’scooperative. The result of farmer’sresponse on ICT availability revealed that most of the ICT tools were scarcely available. Tobit regression analysis showed that age, marital status, primary occupation, household size and farm size were significant, while result of significant relationship between the levels of use of ICT tools/format and availability showed a positive and strong relationship with the level of use of ICT. It was recommended that Government and other relevant bodies should ensure that ICT facilities are installed in rural communities and the cost of ICT tools/format and other ICT infrastructures should be subsidized for rice farmers in order to increase their access to information that is beneficial for rice production.
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Introduction
Agriculture is the engine of growth for most developing countries of the world and also one of the most effective ways to alleviate poverty and hunger (Amungwa and Baye, 2014). It can raise income and improve food security for 80% of the world’spoor, who live in rural areas and work mainly in farms (World Bank, 2018). Agriculture in Africa has a massive social and economic footprint; more than 60% of the populations of Sub-Saharan Africa are smallholder farmers, and about 23% of Sub-Saharan Gross Domestic Product (GDP) comes from agriculture (Goedde, Ombaka and Pais, 2019). Agriculture contributed about 22.86% of Nigeria’s GDP in 2017 (National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), 2018). These smallholder farmers engage indifferent livestock and crops production including rice.
Globally, rice production has grown at an annual average of 10% over the past decades, reaching 486.7 million tons in 2017 (NBS, 2018). Most of this growth came from Asia, accounting for 89% of the global output. China and India are the largest producers, each with a share of 29.6% and 22.6% of the global production respectively. Africa accounts for about 4% of world production and the continent is the second-largest consuming region (Abdul-Gafar and Yu, 2016). Nigeria reached apeak of 3.7million tons in 2017 making them the second-largest producer in Africa. Rice is the primary staple food for most of the populace in the region, especially the rural area, with about 6% of global rice consumption. According to Uba (2003), about 70% of Nigeria feeds on rice, while 30% of their cereal-based diets are also from rice. Udemezue (2018) opined that Nigerians consume 8 million tonnes of rice and the figure rises by 6% annually. Programs, projects, and technologies like Value Addition and Information Communication Technologies (ICTs) have been introduced in rice production and agricultural sector to enhance farmers’ agricultural production.
Information Communication Technology (ICT) can be broadly described as the means through which information can be communicated for individual, societal and collective growth of a nation (Ogunyemi, 2010). Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) are becoming more and more important in connecting farmers and providing information. ICTs helps to keep young people involved in agriculture. The use of ICT becomes imperative among the stakeholders in agriculture, most especially extension workers. ICTs are useful tools and have been exploited by different organizations like Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation (CTA), World Bank and other international organizations to achieve the mission of advancing food and nutritional security in many countries.
ICTs are used to champion practical, cost-effective, and scalable solutions that impact lives. ICTs have a high potential to transform agriculture. They are “means” rather than the “ends”. Information and communication technologies (ICTs) could transform agricultural activities in many parts of the world. ICTs contribute to improving youth livelihoods, agricultural modernization and create benefits throughout value chains, especially through increased access to more effective information via many Smartphone apps (Spore, 2019). ICTs also help to strengthen and develop farmers’ organizations, especially through social networks.
Conclusion
The study examined the socioeconomic determinants and level of use of ICT among smallholder rice farmers in Southeast, Nigeria. Data were collected with a well-structured questionnaire from 476 randomly selected rice farmers and were analyzed using a combination of analytical tools such as descriptive statistics, Tobit regression, Analysis of variance, correlation and z-test. The result revealed male dominance (61.3%), active age (mean age of 38 years) and majority (65.5%) of the farmers were married. The mean years spent informal education was 10 years, mean farming experience was 9 years while the mean household size, farm size and annual income from rice were 5 persons, 11.42 plots, and N426,499.76 respectively. Also, the primary occupation was majorly (64.5%) farmers. The study equally showed that majority (62.0% and 99.7%) of the farmers sampled in Ebonyi and Enugu were members of farmer’scooperative.
The result of farmer’sresponse on ICT availability revealed that most of the ICT tools were scarcely available due to high cost of procurement of these tools considering the economic situation of the country.
The result of Tobit regression analysis showed that age, marital status, primary occupation, household size and farm size were significant while the coefficients of sex, education, experience, annual income from crops and membership of a cooperative were not significant at 10%, 5% or 1% level of probability. The result of significant relationship between the levels of use of ICT tools/format and availability showed a positive and strong relationship with the level of use of ICT. RECOMMENDATION 1. Government and other relevant bodies should ensure that ICT facilities are installed in rural communities. 2. The cost of ICT tools/format and other ICT infrastructures should be subsidized for rice farmers in order to increase their access to information that is beneficial for rice production.