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An assessment of mobile phone-based dissemination of weather and market information in the Upper West Region of Ghana

OAR@ICRISAT

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Relation http://oar.icrisat.org/10145/
https://doi.org/10.1186/s40066-016-0088-y
10.1186/s40066-016-0088-y
 
Title An assessment of mobile phone-based dissemination of weather and market information in the Upper West Region of Ghana
 
Creator Etwire, P M
Buah, S
Ouedraogo, M
Zougmore, R B
Partey, S T
Martey, E
Dayamba, S D
Bayala, J
 
Subject Agriculture-Farming, Production, Technology, Economics
Agricultural Extension
African Agriculture
ICT
West Africa
Digital Agriculture
 
Description Abstract

Background
The rapid growth of mobile phones in Ghana has opened up the possibility of delivering timely and useful weather and market information to farmers at costs lower than traditional agricultural extension services. In this paper, we assess the usefulness, constraints, and factors likely to influence farmers’ decisions to patronize mobile phone-based weather and market information.

Methods
We rely on primary data from 310 farmers in the Upper West Region, an understudied part of Ghana. We subject the data to three types of analysis. First, we model farmers’ decision to patronize mobile phone-based weather and market information by estimating a binary logit model. Second, we use descriptive statistics and hypothesis testing to analyse the level of usefulness of mobile phone-based weather and market information. We disaggregate the analysis by sex, income status, and age group. Finally, we use qualitative analysis to summarize the constraints associated with the utilization of mobile phone-based weather and market information.

Results
We find that contact with agricultural extension agents and farmer-to-farmer extension services significantly influences farmers’ decision to patronize mobile phone-based weather and market information. Regardless of sex, income status, and age group, farmers generally rate mobile phone-based weather and market information as very useful. We identify inexact information, complex text messages, information that are too costly to implement, and poor infrastructure as the constraints to the utilization of mobile phone-based weather and market information.

Conclusion
In order to improve the utilization of mobile phone-based weather and market information, disseminators of mobile phone-based information such as Esoko should constantly update and provide client-specific information. Improvements in mobile phone networks and related services will enhance the utilization of mobile phone-based weather and market information.
 
Publisher BioMed Central
 
Date 2017-04-10
 
Type Article
PeerReviewed
 
Format application/pdf
 
Language en
 
Rights —
 
Identifier http://oar.icrisat.org/10145/1/art_10.1186_s40066-016-0088-y.pdf
Etwire, P M and Buah, S and Ouedraogo, M and Zougmore, R B and Partey, S T and Martey, E and Dayamba, S D and Bayala, J (2017) An assessment of mobile phone-based dissemination of weather and market information in the Upper West Region of Ghana. Agriculture & Food Security, 6 (8). pp. 1-9. ISSN 2048-7010