IMPACT OF INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY ON PRODUCTIVITY OF FARMERS IN IBARAPA CENTRAL LOCAL GOVERNMENT AREA OF OYO STATE, NIGERIA

Abstract

The study was carried out in order to investigate the determinants of mobile phone usage by farmers in Ibarapa central local government area of Oyo state and its effect on productivity. In order to achieve this, multi- stage sampling techniques were used to select one hundred and twenty (120) farmers from the population of farmers in the study area while data was collected with the aid of structured questionnaires and then analyzed with the aid of descriptive statistics, logistic regression and OLS regression model. The result of descriptive statistics analysis showed that majority (77%) of the respondents have access to some level of formal education. The study also revealed that most of the respondents were between the age group of 26-36 years and majority of the respondents were male. This study also revealed that 64% of the respondents had 1-10 years of experience in farming. Almost 62% of the respondents used mobile phone to access agricultural related information. Some problems being encountered by the farmers include; inadequate access to credit facilities, lack of access to extension services among others. Adjusted Rsquared value of 0.1977 implying that about 20% of the dependent variable was explained by the explanatory variables fitted. Marital status (x2), level of education (x3), major occupation (x5), enterprise on farm (x6), membership of cooperative society (x9) were found not to have any significant relationship with phone usage.