CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background to the Study
In a general sense, when people discuss and clamour for rural development, it is easy to understand that they talk about agricultural growth, because practically 80 percent of the rural populace of Nigeria engaged in agriculture and agricultural relevant activities and practically 80 percent of the nation's population live and work in the rural areas of the nation (National Bureau of Statistics, 2005). Agribusiness such as the production of rice, cocoa, groundnut, cassava, sorghum, oil palm and cotton, to name a few, accounted for a huge chunk of foreign exchange profits for Nigeria (Okafor and Malizu, 2013), thus revealing the vital role agriculture has played and continues to play in the history and development of Nigeria.
Also, agribusiness consist of the production of everyday needs such as honey, pepper, tomatoes, milk and others as illustrated by Amobi (2010) serve both household and medical purposes. Additionally, lots of agriculture and agribusiness activities consist of the rearing of domestic animals like goats, rams, picks, cow as well as rabbits, which are the significant sources of meat supplies both to rural and urban population. As a matter of fact, the bones accrued from these animals are additional used for commercial purposes (Olowu, 2008).
Although agricultural advancement programmes are bedeviled with lots of constraints like poor financing to name a few, they have shown resilience in the sustenance of agricultural and rural development, particularly at the grass root level (Umeh, Ekumankama, Nwachukwu and Ekwe, 2015). Nevertheless, in spite of the effortsment to improving agriculture, lack of information has been proven to rank greatest among other reasons for the reduce contributions of agriculture to the overall Nigeria's GDP (Olowu and Oyedokun, 2000). No question, farming as a business, or at least as a way of making income, includes lots of interactions, and parties involved many times have to travel distances. Notwithstanding, using mobile phones, all these might be accomplished without traveling, thus saving transportation cost and time along with reduce dangers of the road. Mobile phones can likewise be deployed to enhance or strengthen other information sources that can aid farmers in their agribusinesses, improve agricultural performance and guarantee sustainable agricultural development.
The arrival of Information and communication technology (ICT), particularly smartphone, is well timed, considering the current and serious obstacles facing agriculture: rising food prices that have pushed over 40 million people into hardship and poverty since 2010, the growing global population which is expected to hit 9 billion by 2050, a heightened demand for food and pressure on already over-stretched resources and the apparent poor communication infrastructures particularly in the rural areas to name a few (Food and Agricultural Organisation, 2009; Oxfam, 2011). Currently even in rural areas, mobile phones are growing in number and in sophistication, and as a matter of fact, from 1999 to 2010, mobile phone spread, according to International Telecommunication Union (ITU) (2011), increased from 12 percent of the global population to almost 79 percent.
The major advantage of using mobile phone is that it is used as a system for exchanging information with calls, SMS and even the Internet. Using mobile phones enhances accessibility to information and making it much less costly to acquire (Overa, 2006). Recently found agricultural methods, like soil preparation and planting, irrigation and weeding techniques, cultivation, harvesting and storage techniques, can be sent via texts messages or voice calls on the mobile phone without travelling to the farmers' locations to deliver in person teachings, unlike the usual technique of agricultural extension (Aker, 2008). Substituting phone calls for travel guarantees safety and security and reduces farmers' time, cost and perishability of the farm produce (Muto and Yamano 2009). Mobile phones are the only more available device compared to other options in regards to cost, geographic coverage and ease of use (Aker and Mbiti, 2010).
However, using mobile phones, particularly by rural farmers, has some associated challenges. As postulated by Alhassan and Kwakwa (2012), mobile phones can best be used for maintaining agricultural development when accompanied by corresponding facilities, particularly electricity to name a few, however rural residents still find some means to charge the battery regularly as much as possible (Burrell, 2010). Other obstacles include absence of mobile phone accessories (Abraham, 2007) while illiteracy can prevent lots of rural dwellers from making use of some mobile phone features and services which need being able to read (Ahmed and Laurent, 2009). Poor networks can likewise pose a challenge owing to the fact that the network service facilities (masts) have not been set up in many rural areas (Falola and Adewumi, 2011).
This study revolves round the theory of information and communication technology for development which suggests that mobile telephone is an asset for agricultural and rural advancement by allowing the rural farmers to have increased access to information (Martin and Abbott, 2011). As verified by Mojisola (2007), using the mobile phone in agribusiness to get information for sound decision-making, particularly in buying, selling and getting in touch with prospective clients, can enhance agribusiness activities. Therefore, even if farmers cannot completely operate the mobile phone or there are no enough facilities, the use of mobile phones by farmers will have favorable effect on their agribusiness. Farmers are only needed to be urged to use their mobile phone for their agribusiness activities. Thus, the reason for this study on the evaluation of the use of mobile phone in rural area for agriculture development by using some selected farmers in Ikom, Cross River State as a case study.
1.2 Statement of the Problem
Sustainable agricultural systems need research-based agricultural methods that depend on advanced mobile phone technology to share and move agricultural knowledge. Using appropriate devices to disseminate information is important to sustainable agricultural development in the 21st century (Ashraf et al., 2018; Kumar and Karthikeyan, 2019). It has been revealed that illiteracy is just one of the big issues amongst rural farmers to use mobile phone particularly smart phone, the majority of the farmers do not have any knowledge and information regarding how to use their touch screen and enter the digits. Likewise, farmers do not use mobile phone for getting the latest information about marketing, weather and use appropriate pesticides in their field. Farmers can use the short message service (SMS) and voice message delivery system to get the information concerning farming problems and issues in different areas. It is very easy to use for the farmer, however same time uneducated farmers are not using this service while it is feasible that this issue can be solved with training the farmers about use of mobile phones and short message services (SMS). In research carried out in the North Senatorial area of Kaduna State of Nigeria revealed that about 78% of the participants asked the main problem of high cost of subscription charges, low quality of mobile phone and its accessories and power issue, to be major constraints. While other problems were likewise determined such as high cost of maintenance, poor network and insufficient skill for its operation. Nevertheless, it was disclosed that as a result of lack of understanding and information about the agriculture marketing information of sell of their product most of the farmers sell their product at low price in developing nations such as Pakistan, Bangladesh and in India. Farmers relate to various sources likes as traders, processors and investors farmers sell their agricultural products to buyers at wholesale price. While after obtaining the product at low cost, traders and buyers resell the products to processors at greater price. For that reason, mobile phones are among the very best sources to communicate directly with market and get latest information of their product and sell it at great price.
1.3 Objectives of the Study
The primary aim of this study is to evaluate the use of mobile phone in rural area for agriculture development by using some selected farmers in Ikom, Cross River State as a case study. However, the specific objectives include the following:
- a. To understand the level of awareness of mobile phone use for agricultural information among farmers in Ikom, Cross River State.
- b. To ascertain the benefits of mobile phone to communicate agricultural information to among farmers in Ikom, Cross River State.
- c. To determine the rate at which farmers in Ikom, Cross River State adopt and use mobile phones features and services for agribusiness purposes.
- d. To enumerate the various challenges that farmers might be facing in using mobile phones for agribusiness in Ikom, Cross River State.
1.4 Research Questions
In consideration of the above objectives the study addressed the following questions:
- a. What is the level of awareness of mobile phone use for agricultural information among farmers in Ikom, Cross River State?
- b. What are the benefits of mobile phone to communicate agricultural information to among farmers in Ikom, Cross River State?
- c. What is the rate at which farmers in Ikom, Cross River State adopt and use mobile phones features and services for agribusiness purposes?
- d. What are challenges that farmers might be facing in using mobile phones for agribusiness in Ikom, Cross River State?
1.5 Research Hypotheses
The following statements were considered to be the research hypotheses for this study based on the objectives of the research:
- a. There is a significant relationship between level of awareness and mobile phone use for agricultural information among farmers in Ikom, Cross River State.
- b. There is a significant difference between farmers in Ikom, Cross River State and the rate of adoption adopt and use mobile phones features and services for agribusiness purposes.
1.6 Significance of the Study
Since the e-agriculture community’s establishment in Geneva in 2003, the accessibility of agricultural information to farmers has been made better as many countries as are entering into projects which aim at disseminating agricultural information through the use of different ICT tools (Ghogare & Monga 2015). This study is significant in that:
An understanding of the usage of mobile phones in disseminating agricultural information to farmers in Ikom, Cross River State will help to establish guidelines, which can be referred to, when developing ICT-based agricultural information dissemination services in Cross River State and Nigeria in general.
If the recommendations from the study are implemented by policy-makers, and the services are successfully introduced, Nigeria will be participating and promoting the e-agriculture community goal of making sure that efficient distribution of information on agriculture, using ICTs, to supply ready access, current knowledge and information, particularly in rural areas. This will add to the existing literature on research focusing on both farmers’ information needs and e-agriculture.
Also, knowing farmers’ information needs will help in the design of appropriate policies, programmes and organisational innovations that will enhance the practice of agriculture (Babu, Glendenning, Okyere & Govindarajan 2012). The design will be a guideline for setting up mobile phone or other ICT-based agricultural information dissemination services in Nigeria.
1.7 Scope of the Study
The study investigated the use of mobile phone in rural area for agriculture development in Ikom, Cross River State. Nigeria is made up of thirty-six states but this study focused on farmers in Cross River State only.
