Determinants of Access and Use of ICT Based Sources of Market Information Amongst Finger Millet Farmers in Teso South, Kenya
Keywords:
Market information, Information Communication Technology (ICT).Abstract
In the traditional field of economics of information, marketing information is an important input to reduce the uncertainties faced by participants in the agricultural markets. In most developing countries, efforts have been directed towards improving farmers’ access to ICT based market information with an intention of providing requisite and real time market information to augment farmers’ access to input and output markets. This study analyses the quality of market information provided by radio and mobile phones and assesses the determinants of access and use of ICT based sources of market information amongst finger millet farmers in Teso South district. The results show that use of both mobile phone and radios as sources of market information is still low amongst the finger millet farmers (about one in four finger millet farmers uses ICT sources), thus transforming the market information system entirely into an ICT based system may preclude most farmers who are semi illiterate hence reliant on non ICT based sources of market information. Integration of both ICT based sources of market information and non-ICT sources is inevitable to ensure all the farmers are given the opportunity to access and use market information.
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