| dc.description.abstract | Agricultural information is key to improving agricultural production in any country. Information is available in agricultural research institutions and Universities but there is lack of access to such information especially by the smallholder farmers who are usually constrained by resources.
The study investigated the access of information by women, smallholder farmers who are more involved in agricultural production and more disadvantaged in accessing agricultural information.
The study was conducted in Mwingi Central District of Kenya, which is a food insecure district that experiences recurring food shortages.
The study investigated the agricultural information dissemination channels available to women farmers, the ICT sources of agricultural information accessible to them and the influence of social economic characteristics on the use ofICTs.
A survey was done using a sample of 96 households randomly selected from among the households growing sorghum.
The study identified the channels of communication available to most farmers to be meetings/barazas, the radio, the cello-phone and trainings/workshops. The ICT sources of agricultural information identified were the radio, TV, databases and CDs/DVDs/tapes.
A chi-square test showed that age, education level and income have an influence on access and use of
K'Ts by women farmers.
A binary logistic regression analysis showed that it is only the level of education that was significant in predicting the likelihood of use ofICTs among the sampled women farmers.
The study recommends that training on ICTs be mainstreamed into the education system in the country starting from the primary level. Moreover, the use 01 the radio and the mobile phone should be enhanced since they are the ICTs available to most of the smallholder women farmers. This is in addition to promoting the non-ICTs channels such as agricultural publications and CDs/DVDs whose usage to access agricultural information is low. | en |
