Investigating the Factors Influencing the Usage of Mobile Phone to Access Agricultural Information By Middle Scale Farmers in Kilosa District, Tanzania
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College of Business Education
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Tanzania, like many developing countries, is using mobile phones in many sectors
including the agricultural sector. Farmers have been using the mobile to get advice
on when to plant, how to deal with pests, seeds information, disease outbreaks,
and market information. The overall objective of this study was to investigate the
factors influencing the usage of a mobile phone to access agricultural information for
the middle scale farmers in Tanzania. The specific objectives addressed were to: (i)
identify factors that would be used to assess the usage of mobile phones to access
agricultural information. (ii) evaluate the relation between mobile phone usage and
access to agricultural information. (iii) propose the best way to support middle scale
farmers in using mobile phones to access agricultural information. To that effect, a
cross-sectional survey research design was employed. A sample of 382 respondents
were involved in this study.
The quantitative data collected were statistically analyzed to compute descriptive
statistics. Among others, the characteristics that influence farmers’ ability to use
mobile phones in accessing agricultural information include, mobile phone ownership,
monthly income, and farming experience, farm size, perceived mobile phone service
reliability, perceived ease of use and attitude towards mobile phone,
Furthermore, the study found that ease of use of mobile phone make farmers to be
stable of using mobile phones to access agricultural information, make market
information available to farmers and improved their position in the value chain.
Also perceived ease usefulness is the most influential factor in constraining the
agricultural use of the mobile phone to access agricultural information.For further work, this study recommends the Ministry of Agriculture, Food Security
and Cooperatives to conduct research on agricultural information needed by the
farmers and also to ensure that the farmers get that information through mobile
phones. Furthermore, the government of Tanzania needs to work with mobile phone
services providers to improve network infrastructure that will provide good signal to
Kilosa to enhance the accessibility of agricultural information to all village also to
come with policy and strategy that will support farmers to sustain on using a mobile
phone to access agricultural information