Assessment of Mobile Phone Usage for Agricultural Information Sharing Among Rural Farmers in Agricultural Zone One, Rivers State

Abstract

The study assessed mobile phone usage for agricultural information sharing among rural farmers in agricultural zone one of Rivers State. One hundred (100) respondents were selected for the study through the use of two-stage sampling procedure. Data collection was done using structured questionnaire and analysed with mean, frequency counts, percentages and Binary Logit regression analysis. All (100%) the respondents owned mobile phones and agreed that they use mobile phones to share agricultural information. Majority of the respondents (84%) considered agricultural information shared through mobile phones to be reliable, while 84% have access to the internet but rarely have power supply (76%). The major mobile phone-based agriculture information source used by the respondents were voice calls (100%), phone radio (100%) and text messages (100%) while phone radio (M = 3.90) and text messages (M = 3.92) were the most frequently used. Information on pest management (M = 3.67) and indigenous knowledge (M = 3.00) were the main agricultural information shared mobile phone. The study concludes that mobile phone is key to information sharing among rural farmers, hence recommends improved power supply by responsible agencies in local communities to support mobile phone use for agricultural information sharing among rural farmers.

Keywords

• Mobile phone usage
• rural farmers
• agricultural information sharing