Adoption of ICT products and services among rice farmers in the Northern Province of Sierra Leone.

Abstract

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.