Available via license: CC BY 4.0
Content may be subject to copyright.
Research Journal of Information Technolog
y
5(1): 11-17, 2013
DOI:10.19026/rjit.5.5782
ISSN: 2041-3106; e-ISSN: 2041-3114
© 2013 Maxwell Scientific Publication Corp.
Submitted: March 23, 2012 Accepted: August 28, 2012 Published: March 01, 2013
Corresponding Author: A.T. Lucky, Department of Library and Information Science, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Kaduna
State, Nigeria
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (URL: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
11
Research Article
Information Communication Technology and Agricultural Information Dissemination:
A Case Study of Institute of Agricultural Research (IAR)
Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Kaduna State
1A.T. Lucky and 2N.E.E. Achebe
1Department of Library and Information Science, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Nigeria
2Department of Library and Information Science, University of Nigeria, Nsukka Enugu State, Nigeria
Abstract: ICT as an indispensable tool for information dissemination cuts across every field of knowledge.
However the use of ICT poses a great challenge to the extension worker confronted with the burden of
disseminating agricultural information to rural farmers because of their high level of illiteracy and the low level of
deployment of ICT. The present study is an effort aimed at assessing the level of effort made by researcher at IAR as
a foremost Agricultural institution in passing on farm information to farmers using ICT channels. It involved
engaging farmers and researchers alike through oral interview in an impact assessment with a view to devising better
means of disseminating agricultural information to rural farmers. The finding shows the low level deployment of
ICT in information dissemination in this very important segment of the economy and as such leaves a lot of room
for improvement.
Keywords: Agencies, backlog, decoding, genetic, modernizing, post harvest, transcending
INTRODUCTION
Information Communication Technologies (ICTs)
have changed the lives of individual, organization and
indeed entire nation, no country and communities are
been left untouched by “information society”. The
value of information can never be under estimated
because of it used for decision-making. Information can
be said to be figures, facts, graph, images, that are
processed and organized into meaningful form, it can
be said to be message from a sender to one or more
receivers (Claude, 1998). Information has been
identified as one resources required for the
improvement of agricultural production, it is defined as
the data for decision making and a resource that must
be acquired and used in order to make an informed
decision making and a resource that must be acquired
and used in order to make an informed decision. Those
who posse’s appropriate and timely information will
make a more rational decision than without.
According to Davin (1976) every individual
whether literate or non-literate needs information in
order to make decisions thus every sector of the
population engaged in agriculture needs information.
Communication is the exchange of meanings between
individuals through a common system of symbols. Our
existence depend on communication in many ways that
we can easily enumerate without our initial backlog of
genetic messages we would not be who we are and
without the internal communication of our bodies we
could not live and functions as we do. Living therefore
is largely a matter of communication and many people
make their living by communicating with others:
broadcasters, politicians, advertisers, teachers-and
librarians who are involved in communication in a
special way.
Technology is the application of scientific
knowledge to the practical aims of human life, or as it
sometimes phrase to the change and manipulation of
human environment, the development overtime of
systematic techniques for making and doing things.
Information Communication Technologies (ICTs) are
those technologies that can be used to interlink
information technology devices such as personal
computers with communication technologies such as
telephone and their telecommunication networks.
Michiels and Vancrowder (2001) defined ICTs as range
of electronic technologies which when converge in new
configuration are flexible, adaptable, enabling and
capable of transforming organizations and redefining
social relations. ICTs therefore, are an expanding
assembly of technologies that can be used to collect,
store and share information between people using
multiple devices and multiple media.
It has come to be accepted that agricultural
development in Nigeria depend upon the small scale
farmers who form the bulk of the farming community
and that for agriculture to really develop these small
scale farmer must know and understand what
constitutes progress in agriculture. The extent to which
Res. J. Inform. Technol., 5(1): 11-17, 2013
12
these farmer progresses depend largely upon their
access to accurate and reliable information: the type of
information they use to solve their problems. In essence
then, the dissemination of information about farm
practices is an important aspect in the adoption of the
practices. Dissemination of farm information can be
said to be as important as the development of the
technology itself. Any technology no matter how
promising, that does not reach the farmer can be said to
be useless to the farmer.
Farmers on their own part need to know how to
increase their yield, how to use new techniques and the
findings of contemporary agricultural research and how
to operate in changing market and credit situation. Mass
media, commercial and government agencies and
agents as well as the personal contact have assumed a
major function of disseminating information about farm
matters with other farmers, friends and relatives.
Agricultural information is necessary if farmers have to
advance beyond their present level of production, a
steady flow of accurate, understandable, factual
information links the scientist with the farmer through
the various sources that communicate such information,
particularly the extension service. Information about
agricultural practices speed the adoption of improved
practices by getting information about the practices to
large numbers of people engaged in agriculture.
Information effectively communicated to the farmers
can help meet farming emergencies by giving farmers
timely warning about market disease and other rapidly
changing conditions.
While modernizing agriculture requires many
activities such as supplies, market services, new
technology and information and so on. This project sees
farm information as essential ingredient in agricultural
development, not merely as a facilitating influence and
regards agricultural information as information
sufficiently tested to establish its utility as a part of the
technology base for farming at the time and under the
circumstances in which it is being used. A large number
of innovations are available and are being
communicated to the rural people and through variety
of channels. It is obvious however, that the information
being communicated does not reach the farmer as
evidenced by the farmers’ generally inadequate
knowledge, understanding, skill and sometimes-
negative attitude relating to change. This leads to rural
farmers to either delay or take no action at all about
suggested innovations (Singh, 1981).
BRIEF HISTORY OF INSTITUTE FOR
AGRICULTURAL RESEARCH
(IAR) A.B.U ZARIA
The institute for Agricultural Research was
established in 1922 as the headquarters of the defunct
department of the Northern provinces. It is to be
responsible for the northern state of Nigeria in
cooperation with the Ministry of Natural Resources of
each state and with other agricultural research station in
Nigeria including those of the federal government.
Majority of farmers in Nigeria live in rural areas where
infrastructures necessary for access to information are
lacking or minimal. For example, services such as
electricity, telephone, motor able roads are very
uncommon, in addition majority of farmers cannot read
and write in any language, thus the only viable means
of communicating information to farmers is by personal
contact with extension officers.
The change in global perceptions and direction to
sustainable development entails the proper
dissemination of improved and modern technologies,
the innovations and adoption of this technology gave
reasons for the development and establishment of
National Agricultural Research Institute (NAERLS)
which IAR is one. The Institute for Agricultural
Research (IAR), Samaru’s functions include among
others:
• Carry out agricultural extension liaison with
relevant and state ministries, primary agricultural
producers, industries and any other use of
agricultural result within their zones in
collaboration with the National Agricultural
Extension Research Liaison Services (NAERLS)
• Provide laboratory and other technical services to
farmers, agro-based industries and others needing
these services
• Intensifying efforts at educating farmers to derive
the benefit of high yields of improved verities since
inception, the agricultural extension services have
been carrying out its activities through training,
organizing seminars/workshops, conference,
monitoring and evaluation, audio-visual aids,
publicity and exhibition
• Genetic improvement of sorghum, groundnut,
cowpea, cotton and sunflowers
How and when information is gathered and used by
staff is a critical point in meeting the need of extension
clientele and agent. However, new communication
technologies offer ways to strengthening the traditional
delivery methods by broadening the audience base,
having more educators involved and thus improving the
timeliness of information.
Statement of the problem: Nigeria is a vast country
with different farming systems involving a variety of
crop, cereals, legumes, fiber, root and tubers and so on.
The agricultural sectors play a key role in the economic
Res. J. Inform. Technol., 5(1): 11-17, 2013
13
development of Nigeria in the terms of food, foreign
exchange from exports, raw materials for industries and
employment. Unfortunately information about these
practices does not reach the rural farmer on time and
may not get to them at all. Perhaps the use of
information and communication Technology might
instigate this problem. Information specialists and
extension officers have the primary responsibility of
disseminating agricultural information to user
population. They are expected to collect all relevant
agricultural literature and make it available through
various methods such as current awareness services;
selective dissemination of information, translation
services. ICT is seen as an important means of
achieving such a transformation when used as a broad
tool for providing local farming communities with
scientific knowledge. Against this background, it is
clear that farmers need new improved technologies to
transform the traditional agriculture and increase
production above the level of traditional technique.
Majority of Nigerian farmers are small scale
farmers using traditional methods to grow complex
mixture of crops. The farmers are poor not because they
are small but because they do not have access to and
ways to convey valuable information to them in other to
improve their productivity. Information Technology can
be of assistance by enabling extension worker to gather,
store, retrieve and disseminate a broad range of
information needed by farmer thus transforming from
extension workers into knowledge workers.
Agricultural extension systems in most developing
countries are underfunded and have had mixed effects,
much of the extension information has been found to be
out of date, irrelevant and not applicable to small
farmers’ needs, leaving such farmer with very little
information or resources to improve their productivity.
Agricultural Extension in the current scenario of a
rapidly changing world has been recognized as an
essential mechanism for delivering knowledge and
advice as an input for modern farming (Janes, 1997).
However, if we have to escape from the narrow mindset
of transferring technology package to transferring
knowledge or information packages. With the help of
ICT, extension will become diversified more
knowledge-intensive and more demand driven and thus
more effective in meeting farmers’ information needs.
ICT has many potential applications in agricultural
extension (Zijp, 1994). It can bring new information
services to where farmers as users will have much
greater control than before over current information
channel. Access to such new information source is a
crucial requirement for sustainable development of
farmer systems.
Need for communication: Communication is referred
to as “the process by which information is passed from
a source to a receiver” and communication channels
provide the means by which the information is
transmitted.
The channels used by farmers are commonly
classified as follows:
• Mass media: Such as radio, television,
newspapers, leaflet and trade lunch etc., from
government or commercial sources
• Personal contact with Extension workers and
representatives of commercial firms either on an
individual basis or in small groups
• Personal contacts with other farmers (Adam, 2002)
Studies that looked at the role of these channels
have found that mass media, channels of
communication are important in conveying information
and creating awareness or changing cognitions, while
interpersonal channels are more likely to cause attitude
change, further, it has been found that radio reaches the
largest audience in most developing countries (Rogers
and Nichoff, 2002).
Rogers and Nichoff (2002) however, found that the
mass media channels are relatively unimportant in
creating awareness while interpersonal technical
channels were most frequently reported change agents;
especially extension agents play a central role in
diffusing new technology.
In a study of Nigerian farmers (Ogiowo, 1999)
reported that most farmer in his sample listening to
radio even though many of them do not own a radio and
that the reprinted word reaches on a small proportion of
farmers. He concluded that personal media tend to be
more important than former mass media both in terms
of total exposure and effective exposure and suggest
that the best medium of spreading agricultural
information is the radio provided there is close follow-
up by chain agents to assure farmers that the
information receive is right for them.
Another study reported that farmers consider radio,
agricultural bulletins/newsletters and posters as useful
means of information on better farming practices
(Effionanyi, 1973). Others studying Nigerian farmers
source of information have reported on the importance
of radio in disseminating information among farmer
(Voh, 1984; Kidd, 1978). Similarly, Williams (1999)
reported in their respective studies that extension
officers, radio and fellow farmers and government
personnel, radio and cooperative union staff is the most
frequently and regularly used sources of information
among farmers. In a study of the strategy for increased
sorghum production in Zaria (2004) reported by
Res. J. Inform. Technol., 5(1): 11-17, 2013
14
extension worker, radio, friends and neighbors,
agricultural shows, films and slides in that order is the
most important channels reported by farmers.
These studies have revealed that mass media,
particularly the radio are capable of providing
information needed by farmers, but that their
mobilizing effect is yet to be accomplished. Similar
studies have revealed that information is being
disseminated to farmers through a variety of channels.
The studies shows that many farmers are not reached or
do not have information about improved practices
(Voh, 1984). Examining sources of agricultural
information available to Nigerian farmers Orojobi
(1980) concluded that radio communication was
recognized as accessible and potentially useful.
Obibuakku and Hursh (1974) also found that radio was
among the most effective means of creating awareness
of new agricultural ideas to rural farmers.
UNESCO (2002) found in a regional survey of
West Africa that radio was the most widely and most
frequently used mass medium. The survey revealed that
a number of radio sets use in developing countries was
high. In ten years, the report says “the total number of
radio sets in Africa has increased by 27%. White (1973)
in his study of five mass media methods found that
three were positively significantly recognized by
farmers and that radio was one of them. William (1999)
identified three sources frequently used by farmers in
Nigeria; he found that radio ranked 2nd to extension
workers as source of agricultural information.
According to McKinlay (2001) certain socio-
economic characteristic of the farmers would affect his
request for and utilization of agricultural information.
Williams (1999) found that socio-cultural and
economic characteristics of farmers were important in
the use of certain source of information. In their study
of the relationship between farmer’s characteristics and
the source of improved farm practices, they found
significant relationship between change agents and
contact with fellow farmers and farmers characteristics
such as education.
Radio and television: These two channels make use of
the electronic materials (radio and television sets).
These two channels may be suitable for Nigeria
situation where there are poor roads for communication.
Radio and television can get information across to
every nook and corner of the rural areas where it is very
difficult to make direct contact.
In the northern part of the country, the RIK
broadcast two agricultural programmers, the “Noma
Yanke Talauchi” and “Filin Manoma” (in Hausa
language that is organized by the institute for
Agricultural Research at Samaru through the
Agricultural Extension and Liaison Service (AERLS).
Here the farmers are told the operations of the time that
need to be done and they are advised to do them at the
appropriate time. For example, during the groundnut off
season, farmers are advised to destroy the volunteer
plant so as to reduce source of inoculums of the resettle
disease-spread by insects called aphids in the following
growing season.
Film slide and mobile road side shows: Mobile Road
side show can be used (as commercial firms for sales
promotion) for extension to inform people of a new
innovation and things or operation that need immediate
attention. Mobile loud speaker are often used in
conjunction with films in Nigeria. It is used to go round
the village and invite the people to the venue of the film
or slide. The Ministry of Agriculture and Natural
Resources (MANR) in the various states with the
cooperation of the respective Ministries of Information
have been going from village to show some agricultural
films to people together and after the films, important
information of agricultural importance is transmitted to
them.
Telephone: It is of great use in Nigeria today because
of its presence in the rural areas where farmers are
found. It is a quick way of making “contact” with the
extension workers or farmers. Whenever we want to, it
does not need any traveling up and down. Questions
can be asked by farmers and answered by extension
worker on the telephone on the spot without wasting
too much time especially very urgent questions.
FACTORS AFFECTING THE DISSEMINATION
OF AGRICULTURAL INFORMATION
There are number of factors which have been
analyzed that make efforts to communicate more or less
effective. One obvious factor mentioned here is man’s
ability to think and to draw logical inferences.
This is of course something that is of importance
for most aspects of human behavior and it’s certainly so
for our communication behavior. A 2nd category of
communication skills is related to the ability one can
have in coding and decoding messages; examples are:
• The ability to read and write (literacy)
• The ability to speak certain language
• The ability to understand not only the language but
all symbols of information communication in a
particular area
Lack of experience combined with illiteracy
restrict farmers’ imagination and make it difficult to
Res. J. Inform. Technol., 5(1): 11-17, 2013
15
transfer new practices to them. To achieve best results
with visual aids in extension with illiteracy for
example, the ICT in particular, visual, the oral and the
print should all be used together, so that the farmers can
connect them in his mind on the spot.
Attitude of information agent: Perhaps one of the
largest obstacles in disseminating agricultural
information to the farmers is that of attitude and self
understanding of the agent himself. “Attitude can be
described as “the total of knowledge, beliefs and feeling
about a certain subject that help us form an opinion on
that subject”. In discussing the importance of attitudes
for the effectiveness of our communicative behavior, it
is useful to distinguish between the attitude that we
have towards ourselves and the people with whom we
communicate and the attitude that we have towards the
subject matter of the communication.
Farmers in our type of economy have limited
knowledge and their speech patterns and thinking tend
to be different. This tends to restrict their imagination
and make their understanding of scientific terms,
difficult, particularly abstract concepts. Education is
presumed to enhance farmers’ ability to receive, decode
and understand information. The fact that farmers have
low levels of education and that education enhances
comprehension should be taken into account, if not; it is
unlikely that they will completely understand any new
concept or idea.
Information has a remarkable characterizes that
marks it out from other resources (money, people, oil,
timber) in that it deployment to a particular use does not
or need not, reduce its value or content or availability
for other uses. Modern ICT provides remarkably
powerful and cheap alternative means of dissemination,
in so far as information is useful, the low cost of
replication and the ease of wide dissemination provide
good reason for public institutions to recognize
information as an important resource, a public good and
a valuable agent for development.
Types of information required by farmers:
According to the majority of farmers interviewed the
type of information they need generally in agriculture
includes:
• Usage of Fertilizer for higher productivity
• Government policy and notices regarding
Agriculture
• Crop Diseases, preventive measures and in case of
disease curative measures
• Education on what needs to be done at pre-harvest
stage and post-harvest stages to ensure productivity
and quality with minimum losses
• Advice on fruits and vegetables because there are
perishable in nature but provide good opportunities
for profit due to great demand in domestic as well
as world markets
• Advice on the vegetable crops to be sown, timing
of sowing, varieties to be used, areas for growing
particular crops, preventive measures for diseases
which pesticides should used, pesticide usage,
storage facilities available, measures to be adopted
for increase keeping quality during storage
Source of information: According to the respondents,
10% of them get information from discussion among
themselves (farmers). To determine the source of
information available to the respondents, they were
asked to indicate which sources were readily available
to them for receiving agricultural information. Most
(90%) of the respondents used radio as source of
information for improved farming practices (10%)
made use of extension bulletin in Hausa language, 10%
used television. Radio was widely used because
majority of the farmers had radios. Radio is one of the
fastest methods of communicating with generality of
the farmers. It can reach many people more quickly
than other media. It does not require reading ability on
the part of the farmers to obtain necessary information.
Knowledge of institute for agricultural research:
Respondents were asked if they have any knowledge of
IAR. The interview shows that 90% were aware of the
institute while 20% are not only aware but had the
opportunity to interact with extension agents.
Contributions of institute for agricultural research:
• Improving the income, welfare and productivity of
small-holder farmers through increased production
and reduction of yield losses
• Simple preservation, storage and processing in the
rural setting
• Designed and fabricated many prototypes of
machines which can be fabricated locally. Some of
the machines are:
o Manually operated maize Sheller
o Sorghum thresher
o Cowpea Sheller
o Groundnut decorticators
o Solar crop drier
The design, fabrication and testing IAR protype
equipment are generally directed at reducing human
labor, facilitating farm operations and at increasing
output.
Res. J. Inform. Technol., 5(1): 11-17, 2013
16
Effectiveness of the contribution: The institute
engages in special project which deals with seed
production and multiplication. The provision of
improved high quality seeds constitutes one of the most
important inputs in agricultural development effort
geared towards enhancing crop production in any
country. The varieties of cowpea, Soya bean and
groundnut released to farmers have been well accepted
and sole crop cowpea production is one seen as a very
profitable proposition, due to IAR findings and a
number of large and small scale farmers are adopting
these practices.
Problems of accessibility to information: Studies
have revealed that information is being disseminated to
farmers through a variety of channels. Yet many studies
have shown that many farmer are not reached and do
not have information about improved practices (Voh,
1984; Zariaand Mijindadi, 2004). The question is why?
One obvious reason that should be mentioned here
is man’s ability to think and draw logical inferences.
The educational level of the farmer, his age, farming
tradition and social group to which he belongs can be
obstacles that prevent an idea from being
communicated. Education is presumed to enhance
farmer’s ability to receive, decode and understand
information. The fact that farmers have low levels of
education and that education enhances comprehension
should be taken into account, it is likely that without
education they will completely not understand any new
concept or idea.
Types of information provided by IAR staff:
According to staffs interviewed, the type of information
that is provided to farmers includes:
• Information about Crop and Animal Diseases and
Preventive Measures
• Fertilizer Application
• Information’s on weed control
• Storage of crops
• Disseminating information about improved farm
practices
• Information on agronomy and animal husbandry
• Information about the qualities of different plant
varieties
METHOD OF DISSEMINATION
According to respondents interviewed 5% of the
extension agents agree that farm visit is used to
disseminate information, this ensures personal contact
between farmers and extension workers. These visits
afford good opportunity to discuss matters of interest
more closely. Mass media method according to the
findings, 15% of respondents agree to use Radio,
Television and Extension Agents to inform farmers
about improved farm practices.
Contribution of extension staff to farmers: Extension
involves the conscious use of communication of
information to help farmers form sound opinions and
make sound decisions. The contribution of extension
staff to farmers include among the following:
• Giving timely advice to make them aware of a
problem.
• Help farmers to make decision in a systematic way,
either as individuals or as a member of a group.
• Extensions staffs have help farmers to experiment
with new technologies.
• Help farmers to discover, develop and evaluate
relevant information for solving problems. This
often will include information on new technologies
developed at the research institute.
• Teach farmers how to produce crops and animals
in the most profitable way, as well as how to
organize themselves in cooperatives and other
farmers’ organizations.
RESULTS
The findings of this study show clearly that the
level of information dissemination is not far from what
it should be if IAR is to live up to its mandate of
making its work beneficial to farmer. There is also the
need to translate such findings into other local
languages outside Hausa for effective dissemination of
new innovations. In line with modern trends in
knowledge dissemination, the internet should be
explored as a way of reaching high net farmers who can
access such right in their homes.
The radio still remains the best mode of reaching
farmers in terms of access to research information’s so
the Institute should liaise with NGOs, States and LGA
with a view to working out modalities for making these
items (fertilizers, improved seed varieties, herbicides,
pesticides etc.) available at subsidized rates to farmers.
Others modes of enlightenment such as the use of
cooperative bodies should be explored in order to make
research findings available to rural farmers.
Farmer needs information on everyone of his
family enterprise from the complex matter of
production through the marketing of the products. In
other words, farm information is an important
ingredient in the agricultural development process. The
findings also identifies the various channel of
communication used by farmers, these include the use
Res. J. Inform. Technol., 5(1): 11-17, 2013
17
of mass media, particularly the radio, personal contact
with extension workers and personal contacts with
other farmers. The level of formal education was low
among the respondents; i.e., more than 50% of the
respondents did not received formal education.
CONCLUSION
The main aim of the research study was to evaluate
the use of ICT in agricultural information
dissemination. Result from the study had shown that
ICT channels had positive impact on the awareness of
agricultural information. The reason advanced by
farmers for increase productivity were, adequate
information from ICT channels about recommended
farm practices, increase farm size, use of improved
varieties.
Finally, the study clearly showed the importance of
using ICT channels in the dissemination of agricultural
information and consequently in agricultural
development in the state. The relevance of radio,
farming programmers, extension bulletins in the local
languages and the distribution of transistor radio by the
extension programmer in IAR is a step to making
communication more effective so as to achieve the
intended goals.
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