ICTs Use, Agroforestry Technologies’ Adoption and Crop Farmers’ Welfare: An Empirical Evidence from Southwest, Nigeria

Abstract

There is a glaring shortage of studies on the impact of ICTs use on the adoption of agroforestry technologies and combined effects of ICTs use and agroforestry technologies’ adoption on farmers’ welfare. To fill the information gap, this study examined the impact of ICTs use on agroforestry technologies’ adoption and their heterogenous impacts on crop farmers’ welfare in Southwest, Nigeria. Endogenous-treatment poisson regression (ETPR) model and unconditional quantile regression (UQR) model were used to analyse the data collected from 488 respondents. The results indicated that the use of ICTs improved the adoption of agroforestry technologies which facilitate friendly environment. Also, ICTs use and agroforestry technologies’ adoption statistically and heterogeneously influenced farm revenue and household food insecurity access scale (HFIAS). Precisely, ICTs use had the highest influence on farm revenue at the lowest quantile, while agroforestry technologies’ adoption had the highest effect on household food insecurity access scale (HFIAS) at the lowest quantile. Therefore, policies that promote crop farmers’ access to ICTs should be the priority of policy makers who are interested in the welfare of crop farmers and increased farmers’ level of agroforestry technologies’ adoption.