Integration of information and communication technologies in agricultural rural development in Budondo sub county in Jinja district

Abstract

A study was carried out in Budondo sub-county Jinja district to establish how rural development can be attained once information and communication technologies have been integrated in agricultural production. Data was collected between April 5th- 23rd by intensive use of questionnaires, interviews and observations. The collected data were coded and fed into the SPSS package for subsequent analyses. The results showed that farmers in the sub-county would wish so much to have information and communication technologies incorporated in their agricultural activities but most of them are always limited by access barriers. This was evidenced by the great number of people who are yarning for information and communication systems for farmers that are just being introduced into the area. Most farmers preferred radios to other strategies; they claimed that their preference for such is due to durability and given the fact that there is erratic power supply in the area, others like computers that would require perpetual power supply can’t be adopted with relative ease. The farmers were not appreciative of services of agricultural extension department of the sub county as only negligible percentage of the farming population gains access to the services. Over 45 % complained that they were cheated by middlemen who tend to buy their produce at low prices, they later attributed this due to lack of access to market information. Some good percentage of the farmers also lamented that marketing of their produce in the sub county is much faced with poor road facilities. It was noted that there exists a strong relationship between rural development and information and communication technologies. To improve on the rural development as so the livelihood of the people in the area through ICT adoption it is recommended that the marketing constraints be addressed by mainly organizing the farmers in groups and promote group selling of their produce joint