Formulating E-Agriculture Framework For Improving Access Of Agricultural Information Among Smallholder Farmers In Kenya: Case Of South Eastern Kenya

Abstract

With a projected increase in global population from 6.7 billion now to 9.1 billion in 2050, global food production must increase by a factor of 2. An increase in agricultural productivity has been cited as a key factor in Africa's rising standard of living. However, the industry has been declining, and many low-income farmers have not been able to escape their plight; 73% of rural residents live on less than $1.25 per day. The lack of access to technology and market knowledge has been mentioned as the primary cause of poor productivity in African agriculture, which is only one of the many obstacles facing attempts to assure global food security, which also includes climate change. The study's primary goal was to create an E-Agriculture framework with the intention of helping smallholder farmers in rural Kenya. This required researching the difficulties smallholder farmers face when trying to get their hands on relevant agricultural data, determining the role that information and communication technology plays in boosting crop yields in South Eastern Kenya, and finally testing and refining the resulting framework. The research method was a descriptive survey, and the prevailing theoretical frameworks were positivism and interpretivism. Target participants were 224 meteorologists, 421 county agricultural extension officials, 208 information and communication technology specialists, and 3,833 smallholder farmers in South Eastern Kenya. We employed a simple random sample technique, and then we used questionnaires, observation, and interviews to gather information, which we then analyzed using SPSS. Cost, illiteracy, ICT skills, information quality, trust, and gender were identified to be the most significant barriers encountered by smallholder farmers. In addition, the study found that smallholder farmers needed specialized knowledge about soil management, pest control, fertilizer use, weather forecasts, and money management strategies in order to boost their productivity. In response, the researcher created an e-agriculture framework to encourage the innovative use of ICT tools to help farmers connect with the research communities. The study found that the lack of dissemination of research results and advances in agricultural technology was one of the most pressing problems facing Kenya and other developing countries. Therefore, governments needed to equip low-income farmers with information and communication assets and services to boost productivity and income, safeguard food security, and improve farmers' standard of living in order to fully capitalize on ICT's potential contribution to sustainable agricultural development. The framework's most important contribution was to facilitate cooperative and collaborative involvement among all stakeholders, therefore closing the gap between the farmer's information needs and those met by the many actors involved. Further research is needed to establish trends in agricultural productivity by smallholder farmers as a result of improved access to and use of agricultural information, and the study suggests that the government and other stakeholders increase spending on rural infrastructures to support mobile phone networking that allows farmers to obtain information in a timely manner. The need to scale up the use of ICTs in access to agricultural information, especially radio since it was the most preferred and accessible media by the farmers, and the incorporation of more social interaction with the farmers in the context of crop production are all areas that could benefit from additional study.