The impact of e‐wallet on informal farm entrepreneurship development in rural Nigeria

Abstract

Transforming agriculture from a largely subsistence enterprise to a profitable commercial venture is both a prerequisite and a driving force for accelerated development and sustainable growth in sub-Saharan Africa. The objective of this investigation is to assess the impact of the Federal Government of Nigeria (FGN) e-wallet program on informal farm entrepreneurship development in rural Nigeria. Informal sector farmers are those that are not legally registered at the national level although could be connected to a registered association.The research is motivated by the absence of literature focusing on the problem statement or objective of the study. One thousand one hundred and fifty-two rural farmers were sampled across the six geopolitical zones of Nigeria. Results from the use of a bivariate probit model indicate that the mobile phone-based technology via the e-wallet program is a critical factor that has enhanced farm entrepreneurship in rural Nigeria. However, results also show that the impact of mobile phones (as a channel to accessing and using modern agricultural inputs) is contingent on how mobile networks are able to link farmers who live in rural areas and work mainly in farming. The results suggest that increasing mobile phone services in rural Nigeria enhances farmers' knowledge, information, and adoption of improved farm inputs and by extension, spurs rural informal sector economic activities in sub-Saharan Africa. Implications for practice, policy, and research are discussed.

Inequality and gender inclusion: Minimum ICT policy thresholds for promoting female employment in Sub-Saharan Africa

“…Third, to the best of our knowledge, the contemporary development literature with emphasis on gender inclusion in Africa has largely focused on, inter alia: connections between access to finance and mobile money with moderations from social and gender networks (Bongomin, Ntayi, Munene and Malinga, 2018); the involvement of rural women and rural farmers in programs that are oriented towards ICT-driven agricultural expansion (Uduji and Okolo-Obasi, 2018a;Uduji, Okolo-Obasi and Asongu, 2019a, 2019d; linkages beween gender disparities and inclusive finance (Kairiza, Kiprono and Magadzire, 2017); the imperative of promoting females in scientific fields (Elu, 2018); gender involvement in informal and financial sectors of production (Bayraktar and Fofack, 2018); the relationship underlying financial inclusion and gender exclusion in microfinance (Mannah-Blankson, 2018); gender involvement in agricultural production that is sustainable (Theriault, Smale and Haider, 2017) and the importance of information technology in gender inclusion in the formal economic sector (Efobi et al, 2018).…”

Corporate Social Responsibility in Nigeria and Rural Youths in Sustainable Traditional Industries Livelihood in Oil Producing Communities

“…This finding agreed with Uduji et al . () in that the most important issue to consider when attempting to bolster TIL is how to enhance the informal sector's potential to absorb those without viable income‐generating activities, and to scale up existing informal enterprises, that involve a large number of unemployed or underemployed persons. PIND/UNDP () agree in that the informal sector account for as much as 70 per cent to 85 per cent of employment in the Niger Delta; and the informal sector workers are in diverse enterprises, including canoe carving, pottery, cloth weaving, thatch making, basket weaving and other traditional artisanal works.…”

“…Before the discovery of oil in the Niger Delta region, the people have interacted with physical environment and made use of what they have in the environment to tackle the problems posed by the same environment. The region is endowed with natural resources that are harnessed by the people for production of traditional products (Erondu, ; Uduji, Okolo‐Obasi, & Asongu, ). The numerous traditional industries in the region range from wood carving, canoe carving, pottery, cloth weaving, mat making, thatch making (roofing materials), palm oil processing, food processing, smithing, cashew nuts processing, palm wine tapping, traditional medicine, to local gin distillation (UNDP, ).…”

IT for the informal sector in developing countries: A broader perspective

“…The paper by Uduji, Okolo‐Obasi, and Asongu () titled “The impact of e‐wallet on informal farm entrepreneurship development in rural Nigeria” focuses on the impact of Nigerian government's mobile e‐wallet subsidy programme for farmers in rural communities. The topic is significant given the socioeconomic role mobile technologies continue to play for rural and farming communities in developing countries.…”

“…In a similar tone, theoretical lenses that are predominantly created for IT adoption and use in the formal organizational environments cannot suffice to abstract the nuances that exist in the contexts of the informal. The inadequacies of these seem starker when one attempts to articulate the finer details of technology appropriation, such as those visible in Coelho et al () when they talk about technology app as a link between the waste pickers and the population in Brazil, although it is unable to transform their lives in any meaningful way, or from the complementarities whose presence is seen to be essential in order to ensure that beneficial effects of ICT are felt, as is seen in Uduji et al () in the use of mobile phones by rural farmers in Nigeria. A means of resolving this inadequacy is to draw from diverse theories such as those from human development as has been highlighted in Tabassum et al () where the authors use Sen's Capability Approach to understand the impact of telecentres in Malaysia.…”