Socio-economic, institutional and behavioural determinants of accessibility and utilization of agricultural information by women farmers in Korogwe District
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Date
2007
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
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Publisher
Sokoine University of Agriculture
Abstract
This study on the socio-economic, institutional, and behavioural determinants of
accessibility and utilization of agricultural information was conducted in Korogwe
District. Two wards were selected, these were Vugiri and Magunga and thereafter four
villages were purposively selected namely; Vugiri, Bagamoyo, Kwcsemangubc and
Magunga. The broad objective of this study was to investigate the accessibility and
utilization of agricultural information for production among women farmers in Korogwe
District. The study involved 100 women farmers randomly selected from four villages.
Data were collected using a structured questionnaire supplemented by interview
checklists for key informants and FGDs. The SPSS software was used to analyse data to
obtain frequencies, percentages, and means. Chi Square test was used to determine the
association between some of the variables. The findings of this study showed that
education, age, extension services, and mass media determine the access and utilization of
agricultural information. Furthermore, the results showed that poor household production
was due to the lack of extension services, low education of the respondents, lack of
financial credit and ignorance of sources of information. Moreover, the study found out
that, sources of agricultural information (extension services, mass media, and farmers
own efforts) have a direct linkage with the accessibility to agricultural information. The
following recommendations were made from this study. First, since the results indicated
that there is limited accessibility to agricultural information to women farmers, therefore
efforts to increase the accessibility of agricultural information should be increased.
Secondly, there is a need of improving extension services so as to reach targeted clients.
The fact that Vugiri ward is located in the highlands, and soil erosion is among the
problems which have contributed to poor production it is thus suggested that efforts
should be made to introduce soil management programmes so as to increase crop
production.
Description
Dissertation
Keywords
Socio-economic, Institutional-behavioural determinants, Accessibility-utilization agricultural information, Women farmers, Korogwe District