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Mobile Phone Technology is increasingly becoming a powerful method of interpersonal communication. This paper documents smallholder rice farmers’ perception of the usefulness of this technology in communicating agricultural production and market information. Data were collected from 282 smallholder farmers selected randomly from rice farmers in Bahi District, Tanzania. The findings revealed that 97.2% of the sampled smallholder farmers owned the phone for more than three years. All phones were able to perform the basic function of sending and receiving short messages and making and receiving calls, with very few (18.8%) capable of accessing the internet. 48% and 78% of the respondents perceived the network coverage and costs of buying and running the technology respectively as moderate, whilst 54.3% perceived the technology as useful in communicating agricultural production and market information. However, only less than 36% of the respondents confirmed to have used the technology to communicate agricultural production and market information, with very few (3.2%) communicating with extension officers. It is recommended that intervention intended to improve farming through mobile phone technology should be configured around the basic functions of mobile phones. More so, extension officers should increase the use of mobile phone technology in advising farmers through automated short message services or a stationed officer on calls.

Water for irrigation is an essential and primary factor influencing crop productivity. However, there is limited information on how availability of irrigation water guarantees efficient use of inputs in farm production, especially for the rainwater harvesting technologies managed at household level. This study employed survey method to collect data from 528 small scale vegetable farmers, randomly selected from 5 wards and 5 villages, among the farmers 220 were adopters of Charco-Dam Technology (CDT) and 308 were non-adopters. Technical Efficiency Model was used to estimate production efficiencies of 528 small-scale vegetable producers, and Propensity Score Matching (PSM) Approach employed to evaluate the influence of adopting charco-dam technology on the production efficiencies of these farmers located in Nzega district, Tanzania. Results from the analysis present the essential intuitions about adoption of CDT and its effects on production efficiencies. It was observed that there was inefficient use of inputs (land-size, labour, quantity of improved seeds, amount of chemical used and amount of fertilizer used) among small-scale vegetable producers in the study area. The inefficiency was basically observed to be caused by household-size, cost of farm labour as well as growing cabbages and scarlet-eggplants. It is further observed that, farming experience, number of farm workers and radio listening behaviour reduced technical inefficiency (i.e., improve technical efficiency). Further analysis using PSM method, found that the adopters of charco-dam technology in the study area significantly increased the efficient use of inputs as compared to non-adopters, and hence realised high yields. This study recommends that, technologies like charco-dam should be encouraged, especially to small-scale farmers in arid and semi-arid areas. Furthermore, experienced farmers should share expertise on the use of inputs, with other less experienced farmers. In line with this, the role of agricultural information on improvement of production efficiency should not be undermined in improving efficient use of inputs. Hence, programmes and intervention that focus on encouraging farmers to listen to radio programmes related to agriculture, particularly those covering specific crop and location, are recommended.

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