Assessing Rural Women Food Producers Capacity to Adopt Modern ICTs – A case Study of the Mfantsiman District of Ghana

D.D. Sampong, Irene Susana Egyir and Osei-Asare Yaw

No 52149, 2007 Second International Conference, August 20-22, 2007, Accra, Ghana from African Association of Agricultural Economists (AAAE)

Abstract: The traditional way of information dissemination has been through people; the modern way is through the electronic media – improved information and communication technologies (ICTs). For effectiveness, modern ICTs should help women to improve on their income generating capacity. Issues of level of resource capacity of women, information needed, and current sources of such information become important. This study sought to investigate the issues above with respect to rural women food producers in the Mfantsiman District of Ghana. Simple descriptive statistics and econometric models were employed in the data analysis of 91 randomly selected respondents. The results of the study showed that: In general, the women food producers were aged, subsistence food crop farmers. They depended on the natural rainfall cycle and had inadequate funds, so they use traditional inputs for production and sell surpluses in the community. The most important agricultural information needed was on inputs, specifically, low cost in-kind or cash credit. Currently, the major information sources are relatives and other farmers in the locality, agricultural extension agents, the radio and television. This suggests that the women food producers have low resource capacity and this could limit the adoption of modern ICTs as a source of and media for information dissemination. Yet, the regression results show that the few (6) mobile phone users have a higher income generating capacity. In order to improve on capacity to use modern ICTs for increased access to other resources, women farmers’ should organize themselves into formidable groups so local institutions can assist easily.

Keywords: Agricultural and Food Policy; Community/Rural/Urban Development; Consumer/Household Economics; Environmental Economics and Policy; Farm Management; Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety; Food Security and Poverty; Institutional and Behavioral Economics; Labor and Human Capital; Marketing; Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 4
Date: 2008-11
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ags:aaae07:52149

DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.52149

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