Access of Rural Women to Agricultural Information in the Eleme Area of Rivers State, Nigeria (original) (raw)
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Journal of Agricultural Sciences, 2017
Information is very important for sustainable agricultural development. In order to increase agricultural production, enhance good distribution strategies, achieve improve and effi cient marketing system, agricultural information should be at the central position. This study evaluated elements of rural economics: access to agricultural information among rural women farmers in Abuja, Nigeria. The specifi c objectives are to: identify the socioeconomic characteristics of rural women farmers, examine the various ways rural women farmers have access to agricultural information, and evaluate the factors infl uencing rural women farmers' access to new agricultural information in Abuja, Nigeria. A sample of 90 rural women farmers was selected through a multistage sampling technique from three selected agricultural extension blocks namely: Byazhin, Kubwa and Bwari Central. The data were collected with the aid of a questionnaire. The analytical tools used were descriptive statistics and Maximum Likelihood Estimates using Logit regression model. The results indicated that about 94 percent of the rural women farmers were less than 55years of age which implies that most of the rural women farmers are in their active age. About 86 percent of the rural women farmers were married. Household sizes were large, 76 percent of rural women farmers had less than 10 members. Furthermore, 97 percent of the rural women farmers had less than 30 years farming experiences. In addition, 92 percent of the rural women farmers realized income less than N 100, 000.00 or 318 US Dollar from the sales of their farm products annually. The results further show that the print media and audio-visuals (radio and television) were the major information sources of rural women farmers. The Logit model results revealed that age, marital status and members of farmer's cooperative association had positive and signifi cant relationships with access to agricultural knowledge and information atrespectively. The coeffi cient of Nagelkerke determinant (R 2) value was 0.658. The coeffi cient of Cox and Snell determinant (R 2) value was 0.488. The study recommends that well-trained female extension agents should be provided in the study area to train the rural women farmers on modern farming techniques that will increase agricultural productivity or yields.
The study was aimed at determining women farmers' agricultural information needs and accessibility, using Apa local government area of Benue State as a case study. A sample size of 70 women farmers was initially taken for the study but only data for 65 respondents were analyzed. Simple random sampling technique was used for the sample selection and questionnaire was used to elicit information from the respondents. Both descriptive and inferential statistics were used for data analysis. The result showed highest information needs in the areas of pesticides and fertilizer applications and improved farm implements. Husbands, fellow women and mass media were the main sources of agricultural information to women farmers and accessibility of information from these sources was relatively high. Age, educational level and income of women farmers showed significant relationships with their accessibility to agricultural information at 5% level of significance. It is recommended that enough information should be provided in the needed areas and women adult literacy and economic empowerment programmes should be given serious attention to enhance their access to needed agricultural information.
The study examined the level of access to agricultural technology information among rural farmers in Ido Local Government, Ibadan, Nigeria. Primary data were collected with the aid of pre-tested questionnaires and 100 respondents were selected through a two stage sampling procedure. The data was analyzed using descriptive statistics and chi-square was used to test the hypothesis.The result of the analyses indicated that (29.1%) falls within the active age bracket of 40-60years, more than half (61.6%) had no formal education, 70.9% were male and 68.6% were indigene of the study area. Majority(58.1%) of the respondents had a little information about weather and climate, 48.8% had no information about tillage while (50%) had a lot of information about weed control and fertilizer. Most of the farmers had little information about government related information (4.7%), market related (7%) and harvesting techniques(8.1%). 50% of the respondents in the study area strongly agreed that source of information is constraint in agricultural production while 3.5% strongly disagreed about the source of information being a constraint. The hypothesis test revealed that there is significant relationship between marital status (< 0.05), education level (< 0.05) and the level of access to agricultural information in the study area. Based on the result, the study recommends that information should be disseminated to the farmers in the language that they understand and also, adult education should be encouraged in the study area to keep farmers informed towards on agricultural production practices.
Agricultural Information Use as Determinant of Farm Income of Women in Benue State, Nigeria
Research on humanities and social sciences, 2015
Agricultural information when provided and utilized improves practices, farm income, living conditions and agricultural development. In spite of the current agricultural extension services, income level of farm women is commonly described as low. This study adopted survey design, using multistage sampling technique and questionnaire to gather information from 500 women in Benue state. The study found out that agricultural extension agent, farmers’ union, and Agricultural Institutions, government projects, mobile phones and other farmers were major information sources consulted. On the overall, rural women’s use of agricultural information was slightly above average with information on market location and farm implements mostly used. Further, majority of rural women made considerably low farm income. Use of agricultural information had effect on rural women’s farm income. The study recommends provision of more productivity related information and need for Nigerian rural development s...
Access to agricultural information is vital for improving food security at the village level. This study accessed the agricultural information needs of women farmers in Nkonkobe Municipality of the Amathole District, Eastern Cape Province, South Africa. Data was obtained from 118 households. The women farmers were identified from four villages using the snowball sampling technique. Findings revealed that backyard gardening (87.2%; n = 103) was common in addition to the rearing of indigenous chicken (65.2%; n = 77) to complement food security. Most (80.5%; n = 95) were confronted with weed problems after applying cow dung as manure. There was a high report (70.3%; n = 83) of insect attack on leaves of cabbage, spinach and carrot, while seed dormancy was low (24.58; n = 29). Problems of fowls' theft (66.95%; n = 49) and fowl predators (40.68%; n = 48) were common. More than average (54.2%; n = 64) depends on friends, neighbors and farmers' colleagues for agricultural information but the majority (99.1%; n = 117) preferred extension workers coupled with farm demonstration for agricultural information. The study identified the importance of farmer-to-farmer model of technology transfer among farmers. It is recommended that farmer-to-farmer model could further be investigated to complement efforts of the extension services towards providing agricultural information to the smallholder farmers.
Effect of Farmers' Socioeconomic Characteristics on Access to Agricultural Information in Gwagwalada Area Council, Abuja, 2023
This study was done to examine the information sources accessible to farmers in the Gwagwalada Area Council, Abuja. All farmers in the study region made up the population, and a sample size of 120 respondents were randomly chosen from this group. A well-structured questionnaire was used to gather data for this study's main sources. Descriptive statistics and the logit regression analysis model were used to evaluate the data. The findings showed that the majority of farmers (42.5%) were between the ages of 36 and 50, were married, and had households with 11 to 20 people. Additionally, the farmers (43%) make between N100,001 and N500,000. Results of the research revealed that farmers have access to some information such as information on fertilizer application, land preparation, improved varieties, fertilizer rate application, pest and diseases, market information and storage and processing. Few farmers had access to information on climate change, proper irrigation and farm machineries. The major source of information was radio, friend and relatives, farmers association and television. Education, marital status, and property size were all significant at the 5% level of probability, according to a logistic regression analysis of socioeconomic characteristics. The study came to the conclusion that radio, family, and friends are the most accessible sources of knowledge. The study comes to the conclusion that socioeconomic factors like gender, employment, annual revenue, farm experience, education, and farm are important for farmers. In order to motivate farmers to purchase some of the facilities that depend on these amenities to operate and provide access to information, it was suggested that the government make basic services like electricity and internet connections more affordable.
Women Farmers' Agricultural information Needs and Search Behaviour in North Central Nigeria
Women farmers play immeasurable role in Nigerian food production, although motivation for participating in agriculture is first to contribute to household food security and income. To sustain this productivity, it is necessary to understand their information need and searching behavior as this will help close the resource access gap between male and female farmers.The study adopted survey research design. As at the time of this study, the study's population comprised 2678 women farmers drawn from the two states. The multistage sampling technique was used to select 800 farm women that participated in the study. Data was collected using a questionnaire tagged "Agricultural Information Need and Sourcing Questionnaire(AINSQ)". The study had 86% response rate. Data was analyzed using descriptive statistics, with the aid of SPSS version 17.Findings reveal that farm women farm implements (x=2.57), improved seeds (x=2.43) closely followed by land management (x=2.38). Further, they had greater access to extension agents( x=4.90), family members (x=3.60), radio (x=3.60) and other farmers (x=3.38). Conclusively, farm women expressed relatively high need for information on farm management and income generation rather than the crop-biased information. Therefore, information bothering on income generation should be included in extension service provision. Similarly, information providers need to consider using ICT.
Journal of Agricultural Extension, 2022
The study investigated rural farmers' readiness to access agricultural information from the National Farmers Helpline Centre NAERLS, ABU Zaria. The specific objectives were to describe the socioeconomic characteristics of Nigerian rural farmers, identify the major agricultural information accessed by rural farmers from the National Farmers Helpline Centre and identify the various constraints faced by Nigerian rural farmers in accessing agricultural information from the National Farmers Helpline Centre. A random sampling technique was employed to select one thousand six hundred (1600) rural farmers across the six agro ecological zones from the National Farmers' Helpline Centre Database who usually call the Farmers' Help Line Centre of NAERLS, ABU Zaria. Percentage, and mean were used to analyse data. It was revealed that 61.2% who frequently accessed information from the National Farmers Helpline were male farmers belonging to the age group of 41 years and above (46.4%), married (75.6%) and having a household size of 6-10 persons (51.1%), with at least 11-30 years of farming experience. Thus, 45.6% of the respondents were involved in crop production while 37.5% were into animal husbandry, with the majority of them (46.9%) having acquired no form of formal education. Furthermore, the findings showed that the National Farmers Helpline Centre supplies the rural farmers with information on cultural practices (69.0%), pest and disease management (50.0%), weed management strategies (73.9%), marketing strategies (72.4%), farm tools and machineries (65.0%), seeds varieties and selection (88.9%) and information on government policies (89.0%). It was clearly identified that rural farmers are personally, infrastructural, resourcefully, mentally and managerially ready to access agricultural information from the National Farmers Helpline
Women Farmers’ Agricultural Information Need and Search Behaviour in North Central Nigeria
Information and Knowledge Management, 2014
Women farmers play immeasurable role in Nigerian food production, although motivation for participating in agriculture is first to contribute to household food security and income. To sustain this productivity, it is necessary to understand their information need and searching behavior as this will help close the resource access gap between male and female farmers.The study adopted survey research design. As at the time of this study, the study's population comprised 2678 women farmers drawn from the two states. The multistage sampling technique was used to select 800 farm women that participated in the study. Data was collected using a questionnaire tagged "Agricultural Information Need and Sourcing Questionnaire(AINSQ)". The study had 86% response rate. Data was analyzed using descriptive statistics, with the aid of SPSS version 17.Findings reveal that farm women farm implements (x=2.57), improved seeds (x=2.43) closely followed by land management (x=2.38). Further, they had greater access to extension agents(x=4.90), family members (x=3.60), radio (x=3.60) and other farmers (x=3.38). Conclusively, farm women expressed relatively high need for information on farm management and income generation rather than the crop-biased information. Therefore, information bothering on income generation should be included in extension service provision. Similarly, information providers need to consider using ICT.
Information Impact: Journal of Information and Knowledge Management, 2015
The study x-rayed the utilization of agricultural information among women in Ihiagwa Autonomous Community (IHC), Owerri West Local Government Area, Imo State, Nigeria. The study population comprised of literate women in the communities studied and data was collected using questionnaire. A total of 160 women were purposively selected from the eight (8) communities of which 79.4 per cent representing 127 literate women returned their filled questionnaire. The findings revealed that literate women in Ihiagwa autonomous community have need for agricultural information. More so, the type of agricultural information required by literate women in rural areas are the prices of goods and services, wholesale and retail spots for agricultural goods. The sources of agricultural information that literate women accessed include word-of-mouth, friends and radio. The benefits derived from utilizing agricultural information include having access to current and timely agricultural information, adequa...