UTILISATION OF INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGIES FOR AGRICULTURAL EXTENSION SERVICE DELIVERY IN PUBLIC AND NON-PUBLIC ORGANISATIONS IN SOUTHWESTERN NIGERIA

Abstract

The challenge of extension service delivery in the contemporary world requires the use of versatile tools like the Information and Communication Technologies (ICT). Effective use of ICT tools for extension service delivery mostly depend on funding by the extension agencies, however disparities exist in the funding of public and non-public extension organisations. Studies on use of ICTs for extension delivery have rarely focused on the differences that exist between extension organisations along public and non-public dichotomy. Therefore, utilisation of ICT for agricultural extension service delivery in public and non-public organisations in southwestern Nigeria was investigated. A three-stage sampling procedure was used. Four states: Oyo, Ondo, Ekiti and Ogun States were purposively selected due to presence of notable Public Extension Organisations (PEO) and Non-Public Extension Organisations (NPEO). Using total sampling, all extension practitioners in British American Tobacco, United State Agency for International Development and Justice Development and Peace Commission were selected to give a total of 41 respondents for NPEO. From Agricultural Development Programmes of selected states, 124 respondents were randomly sampled to represent PEO. Structured questionnaire was used to elicit information on respondents’ personal and professional characteristics, access to ICT, frequency of use, knowledge of use and relevance of ICT tools, perception of use of ICT, constraints to access and use of ICT. Indices of ICT knowledge (low: 8.00-23.59, high: 23.60-35.00), access (low: 1.00-15.19, high: 15.20-27.00), use (low: 5.10-93.54, high: 93.55-443.00), relevance (low: 28.00-61.70, high: 61.71-77.00) and perception (unfavourable: 51.00-79.20, favourable: 79.21-104.00) were generated. Data were analysed using descriptive statistics, t-test and linear regression at α0.05. Respondents’ ages were 40.44±10.20 and 39.91±8.33 years for NPEO and PEO, respectively. Years of professional experience was higher in PEO (10.29±8.24 years) than in NPEO (9.05±6.59 years) and more respondents in NPEO (53.7%) had exposure on ICT through in-house training compared to PEO (38.7%). Highest educational qualification for NPEO was Bachelor’s degree (48.8%), while it was HND (40.3%) for PEO. Access, frequency of use and knowledge of ICT was low for 60.5%, 82.3% and 50.0% in PEO, while it was high for 73.2%, 63.4% and 68.3% in NPEO, respectively. More respondents (61.0%) in NPEO than in PEO (55.6%) rated ICT tools as relevant for extension activities. Respondents from NPEO (61.0%) had favourable perception of ICT tools, while 49.2% in PEO were favourably disposed to ICT tools for extension activities. Use of ICT was significantly higher in NPEO (34.80±11.45) than PEO (29.65±11.10). In PEO, the major constraints to use of and access to ICT were lack of financial resources (1.89±0.36) and interrupted power supply (1.92±0.46), while in NPEO, computer education (0.93±0.72) and low financial resources (1.22±0.82) were the corresponding constraints. Constraints to access (14.10±3.17) and use of ICT tools (10.84±3.30) was significantly higher in PEO compared to access (9.80±5.25) and use of (5.31±5.08) in NPEO. Respondents’ years of professional experience significantly increased ICT use (β=0.043) in NPEO. Access to and use of information and communication technologies were higher in non-public than public extension organisations in southwestern Nigeria.