Smallholder farmers’ digital literacy and access to agricultural information in Lushoto and Korogwe districts, Tanzania
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Date
2023-05
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Publisher
Sokoine University of Agriculture
Abstract
Information communication technology (ICT) offers developing countries' hope for
speeding up agricultural development where livelihoods of the majority of rural households
rely on agricultural production. However, for smallholder farmers to benefit,they need to
be digitally literate. Therefore, the study assessed smallholder farmers' digital literacy and
access to agricultural information in Lushoto and Korogwe Districts , Tanga Region.
Specifically, it identified types of information accessed from social media and the internet,
farmers’ sources of agricultural information, farmers’ digital literacy and reliability of the
agricultural information accessed by smallholder farmers through social media and the
internet. A cross-sectional research design was used whereby data were collected from
200 randomly selected smallholder farmers using a structured questionnaire, interviews
and focus group discussions. Quantitative data were analysed using Statistical Package
for the Social Science (SPSS) version 26 software whereby descriptive statistics
(frequencies and percentage) were determined. Content analysis was used for qualitative
data.The findings on farmers’ sources of agricultural information show that more than a
half of the respondents both male and female used relatives/neighbours (63.6%) and
radio (72%) as their sources of agricultural information. Furthermore, on average less
than a quarter (1 – 23.5%) of all the respondents accessed their agricultural information
needs on improved seeds varieties, market, best farming methods, pest management,
agricultural incentives, fertilizers and agricultural tools from social media and the internet.
Chi-square test results showed that farmers were less likely to use social media and
internet when searching for the above-mentioned agricultural information (p ≤ 0.05).
Binary logistic regression results showed that there was a high likelihood of smallholder
farmers using social media and the internet to access information on improved seeds,
agricultural incentives as well as fertilizers, and this was significant (p ≤ 0.05).
Furthermore, the study findings showed that the majority (72.5%) of the respondents were
fairly digital literate based on the study’s criteria of using the digital literacy Index (DLI) as
presented in the methodology section. Findings further show that the rest fell under good
(12%), very good (14.5%) and excellent digital literacy (1%). In addition, the majority
(76.4%) of those with good and above digital literacy levels had secondary school level
education and above. Furthermore,the findings showed that farmers’ age was negatively
and significantly (p ≤ 0.05) associated with access to reliable agricultural information.
Farmers’ likelihood of accessing reliable agricultural information decreased with increase
in age. This, suggests that older farmers’ capability to search, understand, evaluate and
effectively use of accessed information was lower than that of younger farmers.
Additionally, binary logistic regression results showed that farmers’ in Lushoto had higher
digital literacy levels suggesting that they were more likely to use social media and the
internet for their agricultural information needs compared to those in Korogwe District. In
addition, they were able to evaluate and effectively use the searched information.The
study findings further showed that about a tenth (11.5%) of the respondent’s found
unreliable agricultural information (i.e., fake manure and pesticide information). Besides, a
few (8%) of the respondents believed that the social media and internet sources accessed
were not reliable. It is, therefore, concluded that despite the challenges which smallholder
farmers face in accessing agricultural extension services their use of ICT to curb the
shortfall is still limited. In addition, the surveyed smallholder farmers’ digital literacy was
fair (satisfactory) suggesting a possibility of them being able to effectively use digital
resources in accessing reliable agricultural information in their daily agricultural practices.
Thus, it is recommended that Korogwe and Lushoto District’ governments should; through
their ICT and agricultural departments, other interested agricultural sector stakeholders
and development partners; promote farmers’ digital literacy to instil the requisite skills for
the search, understanding, evaluation and effective use of reliable agricultural information
accessed through the social media and internet to enable farmers to properly use ICT in
meeting their agricultural information needs from multiple sources, hence transformation
of subsistence farming for farming households’ well-being and food security at large.
Description
MA.-Dissertation in Project Management and Evaluation
Keywords
Smallholder farmers, Digital literacy, Agricultural information