Investigating the Factors Influencing the Usage of Mobile Phone to Access Agricultural Information By Middle Scale Farmers in Kilosa District, Tanzania.

Abstract

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.