Access and Use of Agricultural Information in Africa: Conceptual Review

Abstract

Agricultural production and productivity  is  greatly determined  by  the  amount  of information  available  to  its  stakeholders . Limited Agricultural information access is a key factor that has greatly limited agricultural advancement in Africa. Agricultural Researchers centers continue to generate new agricultural information from local to global levels but most of Small scale farmers in Africa limited to access relevant, reliable and up to date Agriculture information. This could be attributed to lack of farming practice and processing agricultural technologies. Hence, this paper is intended to review access and use of agricultural information in Africa. The result indicated that access and use of agricultural information is an imperative to make rational decision, reduce uncertainty, and enhance adoption of farm innovation and production. Accordingly, dissemination of agricultural information has indispensible role for rural dweller livelihood empowerment. Based on the review, the study recommends resolving the challenges which impede provision of agricultural information using combination of information provision channels with consideration of information quality to increase accessibility of agricultural information.

Keywords: Agricultural information, Access, use, Information source

DOI: 10.7176/IKM/10-7-01

Publication date:October 31^st 2020