Feed insecurity associated with prolonged and recurrent droughts remains a perennial challenge impeding livestock production and a major source of resource-based conflicts in the drylands of many developing countries such as Kenya. Thus, the emerging fodder markets in the drylands act as a secondary source of livestock feed to augment the natural pastures and hence play a crucial role in meeting the year-round feed requirements of pastoralists. However, little information exists on the factors influencing pastoralists to purchase fodder for their own livestock amid their long-held cultural beliefs in using natural pastures for forage . Using primary household survey data from a multi-stage sample of 201 pastoralists, this study assessed socio-economic and institutional factors that influence the pastoralists' participation in fodder markets in Isiolo County, Kenya. Both descriptive statistics and a Heckman two-step model were applied in data analysis. The findings showed that pastoralists' decisions to purchase fodder are significantly influenced by access to credit, weather and market information, land tenure system, exposure to shocks, off-farm income, age, gender and proximity to towns. The amount of fodder purchased was significantly affected by access to weather information, exposure to shocks and livestock holdings. These results underscore the importance of improving pastoralists' access to prerequisite institutional support services to enhance their access to fodder and livestock markets, basic services and increased integration into the broader market economy.

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This chapter investigates the way rice farmers in the north-eastern territory of Sierra Leone access different kinds of information across the agricultural season through a multiplicity of channels, including but not limited to mobile phones. Furthermore, it seeks to identify the main demographic variables linked to adoption and use of mobile phones and the related services that can be accessed through these devices. The study highlights a very dynamic behaviour of farmers, and identifies a high diffusion of mobile phones and relatively high access to the internet among rice farmers in the area of study. Variables such as income were correlated with factors such as availability and type of use of ICT products and services among rice farmers, but in common with other studies, face-to-face interaction was not found to have been diminished significantly due to the advent of ICT-based tools.