| dc.description.abstract | The study evaluated the effect of Information Communication Technology (ICT) in
increasing youth participation in production of Pigeon Pea; determined to what
extent the youth use communication channels that are used to disseminate
agricultural information; whether the access and ownership of Information
Communication Technology (ICT) by youth has a relationship to their use in
production of Pigeon. This was prompted by the realization that there were low
numbers of youth participating in Agriculture. This is a distress call to increased
productivity because of the aging farming community. The aged farmers are not
ready to embrace modern farming; yet technology is one of the key options to deal
with emerging challenges in agriculture. Pigeon pea was chosen as it is one the crops
grown in Mukaa and because it’s multiple benefits. Evidence is the fact that Youth
have demonstrated an aptitude in developing, adopting and disseminating such
technologies. Their leadership role in this sphere is evident in both developed and
developing world. Research has been done on use of ICT in agriculture as a way of
addressing challenges in uplifting the livelihoods of the rural poor. Work has also
been done on use of ICT adoption both as a tool to promote youth as leaders in the
ICT sector and to foster broader youth leadership and development programmes. Yet
missing is the link between ICTs? Pigeon pea production and youth. The study
covered purposively selected two wards of Malili and Kilome; representing both of
Mukaa Sub County, Makueni County, Kenya. Trained enumerators were used to
administer questionnaires to collect the required data from youth who were
purposively selected using age 18≤35; individual youth was randomly sampled,
every 5th family was visited and youth interviewed. For analysis, Statistical Package
for the Social Sciences (SPSS) and excel and software was used to group findings in
table, charts and Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) to test the hypothesis. The study
revealed that use of ICT does increase participation of youth in production of Pigeon
pea and access and ownership of ICT by youth had little relationship to their use in
production of Pigeon. Recommended is need for more research in the same area and
capacity in order to optimize the use of ICT in production of pigeon pea. This
finding could be generalized to be used with the youth in the whole Mukaa Sub
County. KEYWORDS: Information Communication technology; Youth;
agriculture; Pigeon pea production; Mukaa Sub County. | en_US |
