Analysis of the Roles of Information and Communications Technologies in Rural Women Farmers’ Empowerment in Rivers State, Nigeria (original) (raw)
Related papers
International Journal of Agriculture Innovations and Research, 2020
The study assessed Information Communication Technology (ICT) utilization among rural women rice farmers in Ayamelum Local Government Area of Anambra State, Nigeria. Multi-stage sampling technique was used to select 51 respondents used for the study while data was collected using structured questionnaire. Descriptive statistics such as mean, percentages, and frequency were used to analyze the objectives. The study shows that majority (66.7%) of the rural women rice farmers were between the ages of 31 and 40 years, 68.8% were married, 82.4% had one form of education or the other while 74.5% had household size of between 6 and 10 persons. More so, 74.6% had farming experience of between 1 and 10 years and majority (52.9%) financed their farming activities through their personal savings. On types of ICT tools available for the women rice farmers, majority (98.0, 96.0 and 94.1) of the respondents identified mobile phone, radio and television respectively. ICT tools such as mobile phones (= 2.9), radio (= 2.6), television (= 2.03), camera (= 2.1) and newspaper (= 2.0) were frequently utilized by the women rice farmers. On the other hand, the women identified high cost of ICT tools (= 3.01), inadequate capital (= 2.81), complexity in the use of ICT tool (= 2.70), inadequate knowledge on ICT tools (= 2.44), inadequate power supply (= 2.41), poor network reception (= 2.27), high cost of internet subscription (= 2.21), high cost of charges on calls (= 2.11) and poor educational background (= 2.08) as major constraints to ICT utilization in the area. It was recommended that efforts should be made by the service providers to improve network coverage in the study area through Information Communication Technologies and efforts should be made to educate the rural women rice farmers on the use of ICT tools.
Information and communication technologies and the'empowerment'of women in rural Uganda
2007
Knowledge and innovation society are becoming priorities to the welfare and quality of life of the rural population. This is based substantially on scientific and technological progress. Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) accelerate rural development by contributing to more efficient management and rapid knowledge dissemination. ICTs are defined as a different set of technological tools and resources used for communication and for the creation, processing, dissemination, storage and information management. The rapid revolution in modern agriculture has led to investigations in many regions. One of them is the rural region of the prefecture of Pella that exists many years in the agricultural sector. The objective of this research is to evaluate the adoption of ICTs among farmers and determine the importance of agricultural extension as an information source in the region of Central Macedonia. For this purpose, the approaches of summary statistics in combination with multivariate statistical analysis techniques have been used. In particular, through the statistical package SPSS (v.16.0), there were employed two correlation methods: (a) the categorical regression model and (b) the two-step clustering. The primary research data were collected using a specifically constructed questionnaire, supplemented by personal interviews with farmers of the prefecture of Pella. The sampling result was to collect a general sample of 303 valid questionnaires.
2005
Information and communication technologies (ICTs) have become a priority among developing nations, and play a significant role in supporting rural development. A core aspect associated with rural development is gender specific agriculture, which focuses on elevating women's contributions towards economic and social enhancement through agriculture. An investigation into the use of ICTs by rural women farmers reveals the constraints they face when it comes to taking advantage of such technologies. Studies within Africa and other developing countries illustrate that these constraints are particularly associated with the social and cultural limitations that women encounter in the traditional environments that characterise most developing countries. Local communities, Government and non-governmental organisations should collaborate to devise policies and initiatives that can support the effective implementation and sustainability of ICT projects, and hence start to remove the barrier...
Policy Implications for Using Icts for Empowerment of Rural Women in Ghana
Turkish Online Journal of Educational Technology, 2008
Using rural household survey data collected from 1000 female household heads selected from all the ten administrative regions in Ghana, this paper explored the policy implications for using ICTs for empowerment of rural women. A contingent valuation (CV) method was used to quantitatively estimate the influence of selected socio-economic factors on rural women’s willingness to pay for alternative information delivery technologies. Even though the government sets the overall national ICT policy, the results from this study suggest some merit in allocating considerable authority to regional and local authorities in setting priorities and approaches to empowering rural women through the use of ICT. The study results also point to a need to cast rural empowerment policies and programs within the broader poverty reduction policies of the government and also within the attainment of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The results again indicate the need to formulate policies and progr...
The study examines the access of farmers to Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) in Bauchi Local Government Area of Bauchi state, Nigeria. A total of 120 respondents were randomly selected in the study area. Data were collected using pre-tested questionnaires and analyzed using percentages, means, chi-squire and other parametric statistical tools. For the purpose of the research, ICTs were divided in to two categories: conventional (Radio/Television) and contemporary or modern (computer/internet and GSM). Results showed that radio was the most widely accessible ICT by the respondents (98.33%) it was followed by television (41.67%), GSM (40.00%) and the least computer/internet (5.00%). Chi-square analysis revealed that age, background and educational level of respondents were significant (P ≤ 0.05) with access to modern ICTs. Kruskal-Willis rank test on reception of ICT services was not significant because on the average, at least the service of one of the categories of ICTs was received by respondents in all the villages studied. Mann-Whitney rank test on the problems confronting the respondents was significant (P ≤ 0.05) with access to ICTs. Thus, it is recommended that widespread education on the use of modern ICTs especially computer/internet and intensification of the use of existing conventional ICTs particularly the radio will bring a turning point in ICTs access and reception in the study area.
The study examined SocioEconomic characteristics and access to information and communication technologies (ICTs) among rural farmers in Ifedore Local Government Area of Ondo state. It also assessed the factors influencing accessibility of ICTs for sourcing agricultural information in the study area. A total of one hundred and twenty farmers were randomly selected from six towns that were purposively chosen. Data were collected using a well-structured questionnaire and analyzed using descriptive statistics such as frequency and percentage as well as assessing the factors influencing accessibility of ICTs. About 70% of the respondents are male; 30% of them are 60 years old and above. Eighty six point seven percent (86.7%) were educated up to secondary school level, inheritance was the major mode of farmland acquisition while most of them had family size of 5 and below. The study concluded that ICTs exist in the study area and the farmers were well aware of them but were faced with various challenges in their usage of these technologies. The following recommendations were made: rural farmers, especially old and illiterate ones, should be enlightened/educated on how to use ICTs to achieve maximum benefits; and ICT service centres should be established in rural areas.
Asian Journal of Agricultural Extension, Economics & Sociology
The study was conducted in Dehradun district of Uttarakhand to measure the knowledge of farmers towards use of ICT for empowerment of rural women in Dehradun district of Uttarakhand. A total number of 120 respondents were selected purposively from six villages in the Doiwala block based on maximum access and usage of ICT tools among women. The data was collected using the personal interview method with a pre-structured interview schedule, and then appropriate statistical analysis was performed to obtain meaningful results. The study's findings revealed that the majority of respondents (54.17%) belonged to the middle aged group, and the majority of respondents (80.83%) belonged to the marginal sized land holding category, i.e. up to 1 ha. It was found that the majority of the respondents (64.17%) were educated from primary to high school and 46.67% of the respondents belonged to the middle category of mass media exposure. The findings also revealed that the majority of the respon...
Raising farmers' productivity and incomes are a necessity. This study investigated the roles ICTs play in improving farmers agricultural livelihoods. Using a multi-stage sampling technique, 250 agricultural producers were chosen randomly from 10 agricultural cooperatives in Imo state. Data were collected by means of questionnaire and analyzed by using percentages and means presented in tables. Results indicated that majority (65.6%) were males, with a mean age of 43.5 years, the mean farm size was 2.4 hectare and an average of 23 years farming experience. The ICT devices used included radio, mobile phones, computers, internet, magazines, newspapers. The agricultural livelihood activities included cash crop productions. fish farming, poultry keeping etc. ICT roles for improving livelihood of farmers included provision of market information (M=3.37), building farmers capacity (M=3.05), reduction of household risk (M=3.53) among others. ICTs play important roles in farmers welfare and should be encouraged for use by farmers in both rural and urban areas.
2006
The aim of this study is to investigate ways in which modern information and communication technologies (ICTs) can play a role in alleviating poverty, focusing on developing countries. The study looks at agricultural development, which is a critical subarea associated with poverty alleviation, and concentrates on gender specific agricultural development (GSAD), which refers to the development of agricultural practices through the use of innovative processes, with a focus on gender (Accascina, 2000). Women are twice as likely to be involved in agriculture as men and, globally, women have a principal role in agribusiness, food processing and consumer-related activity (Hafkin & Odame, 2002). Women also make up 70% of agricultural workers, and produce 80% of the region's food in Sub-Saharan Africa (USAID, 2003). If there is benefit to be gained from the use of ICTs in rural agricultural development in Africa, it is therefore important to consider their use in the context of GSAD. This research study responds to a need to understand the factors that should be considered in implementing ICTs in this environment by bringing together a wide range of literature associated with ICTs and their use in gender agricultural development. To set some background for the study, the first section presents some of the issues pertaining to the so-called "digital divide". The second section describes the uses of ICTs and the key applications for GSAD, and in the third section the barriers to, and constraints on, the use of ICTs by women are outlined.
Information communication technologies have the potential to increase farmers' access to information which is paramount in enhancing agricultural production in developing countries. The study examined access and use of information communication technologies by farmers in Enugu north senatorial zone, Enugu state, Nigeria. Structured interview schedule was used to collect data from 90 farmers randomly selected for the study. The data were analyzed using percentages, frequency counts, mean scores and standard deviation. Results indicated that radio (98.9%), television (95.5%) and mobile phones (96.7%) were the most available ICTs in the area. ICT facilities accessible to the farmers were mobile phone (M=1.83), video players (M=1.46), radio (M=1.82) and television (M=1.52) while radio (M=2.71), mobile phones (M=2.64), television (M=2.02) were mostly used. The major benefits of ICTs as perceived by the farmers included: enhanced information exchange and interaction between researcher...