Russian Journal of Agricultural and Socio-Economic Sciences (Apr 2022)
ARABLE CROP FARMERS’ PERCEPTION OF BENEFITS OF ICTS USE BY EXTENSION AGENTS IN IDO LOAL GOVERNMENT AREA, OYO STATE, NIGERIA
Abstract
The study investigated Arable crop farmers’ perception of benefits of ICTs use by Extension agents in Ido Local Government Area, Oyo State, Nigeria. Multiple stage sampling procedure was used to select 105 respondents for the study. Data were collected through the use of structure questionnaire from the respondents and descriptive statistics such as mean, frequency tables, and percentages were used to describe data while inferential statistical tools such as Chi-square, PPMC (Pearson Product Moment Correlation) were used to analyze the hypotheses of the study. The results showed that majority of the respondents were in the age bracket of 31-40 years, and more of them were males, with majority of them were married. The major sources of ICTs available to the respondents were radio, mobile phone and internet. Results revealed perceived benefit of ICTs by extension agents among respondents as majority strongly agreed perceived benefits were farmers can get remunerative price to their produce through ICT based market intelligence, weather forecasting through ICTs assist farmers in timely decision, using ICT to communicate to the farmers by the extension agent could affect the face to face interaction presently enjoy by the farmers, existing infrastructure of ICT is not enough to meet the needs of the farming community in rural areas where Farmers reside. There is significant relationship between socio-economic characteristic of the respondents and perceived benefits of ICTs use which implies that marital status, educational level, religion, other occupation and land acquisition were significant to the perceived benefits of ICTs use in the study area, also there is significant relationship between sources of ICTs and perceived benefits of ICTs use. It is therefore recommended that information exchange on agricultural related activities should be encouraged through the use ICTs so as to strengthening the perceived benefits of use of ICTs by extension agents among arable crop farmers.
