Abstract:
This was aimed to assess the mobile phone influence on delivery of agricultural market information in Magola sub-county, Tororo district focusing on characteristics of mobile phone usage among small holder farmers, and factors influencing mobile phone usage in agricultural market information access. Data was collected using a structured questionnaire where 133 farmers were sampled. SPSS version 25 was used to analyse the objectives where objective one was analyzed using the T-tests and chisquare tests and objective two was analyzed using the binary probit model. The results of the study show that more males 51.1% while the females were 48.9%, majority of the farmers were married 63.3% and majority of the farmers’ attained primary education (45.9%). Majority of the farmers’ main source of income was farming (82.7%), only 20.3% of the farmers could access agricultural credit, most farmers, 69.9% didn’t belong to a farming group and majority of the farmers (51.1%) had a household size of 6-10 people. Under characteristics of mobile phone usage and small holder farmers, it was found out that the mean age of those who use mobile phones was 37.32, those with higher educational level used more of the mobile phones, and males also used the mobile phones than the females. Factors affecting mobile phone use in agricultural market information access included gender, educational level and farmers’ experience of mobile phone use.
