Women Farmers’ Agricultural Information Need and Search Behaviour in North Central Nigeria

Abstract

Women farmers play immeasurable role in Nigerian food production, although motivation for participating in agriculture is first to contribute to household food security and income. To sustain this productivity, it is necessary to understand their information need and searching behavior as this will help close the resource access gap between male and female farmers.The study adopted survey research design. As at the time of this study, the study’s population comprised 2678 women farmers drawn from the two states.  The multistage sampling technique was used to select 800 farm women that participated in the study. Data was collected using a questionnaire tagged “Agricultural Information Need and Sourcing Questionnaire(AINSQ)”. The study had 86% response rate. Data was analyzed using descriptive statistics, with the aid of SPSS version 17.Findings reveal that farm women farm implements (x=2.57), improved seeds (x=2.43) closely followed by land management (x=2.38). Further, they had greater access to extension agents( x=4.90), family members (x=3.60), radio (x=3.60) and other farmers (x=3.38). Conclusively, farm women expressed relatively high need for information on farm management and income generation rather than the crop-biased information. Therefore, information bothering on income generation should be included in extension service provision. Similarly, information providers need to consider using ICT.

Keywords: Information needs, Information source, Farm women, Agricultural information