The Estimation Model of Determinant of Mobile Phone Apps’ Usage by Smallholder Farmers in North West Nigeria

This study examined the determinants of frequency of cellphone applications’ usage among farmers in North-West Nigeria using Negative Binomial Regression Model (NBRM). Using ex-post-facto research design, multi-stage sampling procedure was employed to select 385 respondents from ADP geo-ecological zones of three agrarian states (namely Katsina, Kano and Kaduna) for the study. Thereafter, three Local Government Areas (LGAs) were randomly selected from each state and from which 5 communities were randomly selected from each of the LGAs in Katsina and Kaduna, and 10 from the most densely populated Kano state. Data were collected using a pre-tested structured questionnaire and summarized using frequency counts, percentages and mean. Though most frequently used mobile applications include voice call app (mean value of 1.410), SMS app (0.932 mean score) and Opera with 0.640 mean value, weighted mean values showed that all the apps were rarely being put to use by the farmers, indicating generally low frequency of usage. NBRM analysis results showed that educational attainment, knowledge, phones farmers operate well, phone as information garget, app store, social media and agencies as sources of apps positively influenced the frequency of mobile apps usage. A well guided effort through appropriate policies that would encourage the frequency of mobile phone usage by farmers for information accessing, should be put in place by major stakeholders of rural and agricultural development in the area.