Farmers Inclination to Adoption of Mobile Phone Agriculture Information and Trade Systems in Pakistan

Abstract

This research studies three aspects relating to farmers readiness for the proposed mobile phone information and trade system (MAITS) namely (a) farmer readiness to adopt newly proposed mobile information and trade system (b) key factors that affect farmers mobile decision support systems (c) farmers readiness to connect with mobile enterprise networks. These were investigated using a qualitative research method. After a careful selection of a set of questions, interviews were conducted with selected farmers from four cities of Pakistan including Lahore, Faisalabad, Vehari and Khanewal. The analysis revealed that farmers readiness to embrace new mobile phone information systems requires maximum level of optimism and innovativeness along with deal of the inhibiting factors which affect the readiness state; inhibiting factors in MAITS adoption comprised of uncertainty factors and current faulty existing system services; and there has been a complete consensus among the farmers to practice MAITS along with mobile decision support system because it can help them in crop planning, farm inputs (seeds, fertilizer, sprays etc), harvesting, transporting and trading. The findings of this study will provide guidance to the relevant organizations when considering readiness and barriers towards implementing of MAITS. The results of the study will give insight to many extension service and policy makers to understand what farmers actually need.