Libraries at University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Abstract
This study investigated the influence of farmers’ personal and socio-economic characteristics on their use of agricultural information provided by the Imo State Agricultural Development Programme (ADP), Nigeria. An ex-post facto research design was used for the study. Stratified proportionate sampling technique was used to select a sample of 1,032 out of a total of 6,300 farmers across the existing 34 farm blocks and 63 farm cells in the three ADP zones of the state. A self-developed and structured questionnaire was used for data collection. A reliability co-efficient of 0.83 was obtained for the instrument using the Crumbach alpha. Two hypotheses were formulated to test their combined as well as their relative prediction of agricultural information use by farmers. Multiple regression analysis was used to test the hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance. The results showed that the combination of the independent variables accounted for 29.58% of the variance of the dependent variable (R2 = 0.29580). The extent to which each of the twelve independent variables contributed to the prediction were: education (b = 0.271508, t=2.198; P < 0.05); marital status (b = 0.241909, t=2.189; P < 0.05); income (b = 0.329815, t=2.644; P < 0.05); preferred media (b = 0.262797, t=2.152; P < 0.05), etc. The results underscore the need for a programme aimed at improving the farmers’ socio-economic conditions for increased receptiveness of agricultural innovations.