Women Farmers’ Agricultural Information Need and Search Behaviour in North Central Nigeria (original) (raw)
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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.
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...
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.
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.
Access of Rural Women to Agricultural Information in the Eleme Area of Rivers State, Nigeria
Journal of Agricultural & Food Information, 2012
This study assessed rural women's access to agricultural information in the Eleme Local Government Area of Rivers State, Nigeria using a sample size of 100 farm women. Field data were elicited with an interview schedule and analyzed using descriptive statistics. Results showed that only 40% of the respondents had access to agricultural information and that their major sources of information were friends/family members and fellow farmers. Findings further revealed that agricultural information resulted in increased farm productivity among recipients. The major constraints to information access were unavailability of extension agents, insufficient funds, and complexity of information. The study recommends availability of more extension agents, delivery of micro-credit, and simplification of information to improve rural women's access to agricultural information in the study area.
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.
Information Needs of the Female Farmers in Agricultural Activities
Asian Journal of Agricultural Extension, Economics & Sociology
The purposes of this study was to determine the selected characteristics of the female farmers, to determine the information needs of the female farmers in practicing agriculture and to explore the relationship between information need and selected characteristics of the female farmers. Data were collected using interview schedule from a sample of 50 farmers out of 100 farmers of target group and 50 farmers out of 100 farmers of control group selected random sampling procedure from the beneficiaries of PROTIC project of Dimala upazila under Nilphamari district. Besides the usual descriptive statistical parameter, Pearson’s Product Moment Correlation Coefficient (r) was used for the statistical analysis. The information needs were determined on 20 selected agricultural activities related information. It was revealed that the highest information needs was observed on ‘pesticides name’ in target groups. Lowest information needs was observed on ‘pond preparation’. In case of control gro...
Agriculture information needs of farm women: A study in State of north India
African Journal of Agricultural Research, 2014
Access to accurate, timely and reliable information plays a crucial role in the adoption of appropriate agriculture technology. Although, women contribute significantly in the farming operations, their contribution is not yet fully recognised and acknowledged. In order to improve agriculture productivity and production efficiency, there is an urgent need to identify their agriculture information needs. The present study was undertaken to find out the agriculture information needs of farm women in a Himalayan State of North India. The study adopted a descriptive research design and the study sample included 120 farm women selected from eight randomly selected villages using PPS method. The findings indicate that farm women expressed the need for information regarding disease control/management, weed control/management, high yielding variety crops, fertilizer requirement, use of improved farm implements, and information related to marketing. An appropriate information dissemination strategy can be developed on the basis of their information seeking and information sharing behaviour. The study has policy and programming implications for devising appropriate extension strategies for fulfilling the information needs of farm women for enhancing agriculture productivity and production efficiency.
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...
The study was carried out to examine the sources of extension information among women maize farmers and the effect of extensive information on the output of the farmers in the study area. Primary and secondary data were utilized in this study. The primary data were obtained using a structured questionnaire and were analyzed using the instrumentality of descriptive and inferential statistics. The result of the data analysis showed that a large proportion (64.5%) of the respondents indicated that radio was their main source of extensive information, 59% of the respondents indicated that visit by extension agents was their main source of extensive information. The mean output (1946.53kg) for women farmers with access to extensive information was significantly higher than the mean output of women farmers without extension information (1456.94kg) at the 1 percent probability level. Based on the findings of this study, it is recommended that the transfer of extension information to women ...