Mobile phone use by small-scale farmers: a potential to transform production and marketing in Zimbabwe

Abstract

ABSTRACT

Farmers’ use of mobile phone for accessing agricultural information in Pakistan:

“…For the case of the current study, 26.7% of mobile phone usage has been solely reported for farmrelated purposes in which Market information and discussion on farm-related financial matters ranked as the highest accessed agriculture information with the proportion of 12.6% and 8.1% of total mobile phone use (47.2% and 30.3% of farm-related use). These findings are in line with another similar study which stated that farmers mostly rely on the mobile-based communications for their farm-related marketing and financial matters (MASUKA et al, 2016).…”

“…Higher use of market information also represents its usefulness for farming activities as literature has also endorsed a positive impact of market information on the crop productivity and farm income (KIKULWE et al, 2014;GICHUKI & MULU-MUTUKU, 2018). It is further argued that use of the mobile phone for accessing market information increased because generally in many rural societies the markets are distant from the farms so farmers use a mobile phone to communicate with local markets and traders (MASUKA et al, 2016). Similarly, 30% of farm-related use of the mobile phone was for "Financial matter", which showed the farmers reliance on mobile phone-based interaction for their money lending matters and credit services.…”

“…Moreover, "increased connectivity with stakeholders" indicated that the mobile phone by penetrating the local demographics has significantly strengthened the connectivity of farming communities and positively impacted their agriculture and related businesses. The literature stated that mobile phone has equipped the farmers to establish a network with various stakeholders in agriculture like traders, consumers and many institutions (MASUKA et al, 2016). Results hence proved cell phone technology as an effective ICT tool which made farmer to farmer communications more flexible and easier.…”

Smallholder Farmers’ Perception on Mobile Phone Advisory Potential in Farming in Bhagalpur, India

“…Challenges in the use of mobile service(X 3 information, promote social esteem of farmers, better information sharing and ultimately it assisted farmers in better decision making in farming (Table 6). It was also noted that socioeconomic variables age is positively and significantly correlated with the access of the information in anytime (X1: 0.486**), Education level is positively and significantly correlated with the access of the information in anytime (X 1 : 0.327*) and challenges in use of mobile service (X 3: 0.356*).…”

“…Although Mobile phones become an omnipotent device in human interface and interpersonal communication and farmers across the globe are using it. Mobile phones have potential to connect farmers to markets, close the information gap and enable informed decisions [3], receive quality and timely information on pest and disease control of crop and irrespective of the socio-economic characteristics, the farmers were utilizing the mobile multimedia agricultural advisory system [4]. Mittal and Tripathi [5], opined that mobile phones can act as a catalyst to improving farm productivity and rural incomes, the quality of information, timeliness of information and trustworthiness of information are the three important aspects that have to be delivered to the farmers to meet their needs and expectations.…”