Review on Impact of ICTs on Improving Agricultural Productivity and Rural Incomes in Ethiopia

Abstract

The experience in Ethiopia rapid development of Information and Communication Technologies, which facilitates the flow of data and information, has tremendously enhanced the knowledge management practice in agriculture. The objective of this paper is to review the impact of information and communication technologies to improve agricultural productivity and rural income in Ethiopian and review the recently developed agricultural knowledge and information systems in Ethiopia and others related documents. The study is based on a systematic review of existing literature of agricultural information communication and knowledge management system work in the country and supported documents of others countries. The review paper is organized in four sections. Section I focuses on importance of Information and Communication Technologies to the Ethiopian agricultural extension system. The second section discusses types of Information and Communication Technologies used by the farmers in Ethiopia. The third section to review the challenges and opportunities of Information and Communication Technologies ICT in provision of information services for the developments of agricultural production and generates rural income in Ethiopia. The findings of this study reveal that the various forms of Information and Communication technology have been used in agricultural service delivery and were more in tune with the circumstances and requirements of smallholder farmers. Therefore, the emergence of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) in this era has opened new opportunities in agricultural knowledge management that could play an important role in meeting the prevailing challenges related to innovation, sharing, exchanging and disseminating agricultural information, knowledge and technologies to the intended smallholder farmers.