FACTORS INFLUENCING THE USE OF INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGIES (ICTs) AMONG RICE FARMERS IN KANO STATE, NIGERIA

Abstract

The study analyzed the factors influencing rice farmers’ use of Information and Communication Technologies in six selected Local Government Areas of Kano State. The study described the socio-economic characteristics, determined factors influencing the use of ICTs and identified the perceived constraints associated with the use of ICTs by rice farmers in the study area. Multistage sampling procedure was used to select 680 respondents for the study. Both primary and secondary data were used. The data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and multiple regression model. The result showed that the majority (70.59%) of rice farmers were male. Most (51.47%) of them were between 41-50 years of age, indicating that they were in their productive years. The majority were married (58.97%) and had large household size (61%) of between 6-10 people. Educationally, 61.76% of them were secondary certificate holders with farming experience (57.79%) between 6-10 years and 69.56% cultivated 1.1-2.0hectares of lands. The result also revealed that farmers belonged to one cooperative society and another (59.41%) with 6–10years of membership and a mean of 8years. Farmers equally had access to extension services (57.21%) and no credit facility (73.68%). The study revealed that age, sex, farming experience, household size, farm size, educational level, extension contact and membership of cooperatives significantly influenced rice farmers’ use of ICTs with an R² value of 0.86. The perceived constraints of the farmers were high cost of ICTs, inadequate access to extension services and lack of credit facilities, epileptic network, power and electricity supplies and language barriers. It was concluded that socio-economic factors significantly influenced ICT usage among rice farmers. Farmers should make use of their membership of cooperatives to contribute money together in eradicating the problem of high cost of ICTs and also install alternative source of power to equally overcome the problem of irregular power supply.