Factors Influencing e-Readiness of Agricultural Extension Agents in Adamawa, Gombe and Taraba States Nigeria
The study assessed the factors influencing e-readiness of agricultural extension agents in Adamawa, Gombe and Taraba States, Nigeria. The specific objectives include describe the socio-economic characteristics of the agricultural extension agents and assess factors influencing agricultural extension agents' use of ICTs in the performance of their duties. Primary data was used for the study and were collected through the administration of questionnaires. A multistage-stage random sampling technique was employed to proportionately select 254 agricultural extension agents from Adamawa, Gombe and Taraba States Nigeria using Taro Yamane's formula. Data collected were analyzed using descriptive and the inferential statistics. The results of the analysis revealed that majority of agricultural extension agents were between the ages of 41 – 50 years and non below the age of 20 years. A large proportion of the agricultural extension agents about 70% were male with only 30.71% female. Majority (91.34%) were married all (100%) of the agricultural extension agents in the study area had one form of formal education or the other with 45.7% and 1.57% of them had Degree/Higher National Diploma (HND) and Masters Degrees respective. Majority (77%) of the agricultural extension agents have been in service above 21 years with a mean working experience of 6.5 years was. 61.42% had grade levels of between 10 and 15 with 67.71% had an estimated average annual income of between N20, 000.00 – N 60, 000.00 only. The factors influencing e-readiness of agricultural extension agents as shown by the McFadden R2 in the Logit regression analysis explained about 92% of the variation of independent variable with age, marital, education status, years of experience, monthly income, number of ICT trainings and number of ICTs available significant at 1%, 5% and 10% levels of significance. The study recommends that, government should develop a mechanism to encourage agricultural extension agents to improve access or ownership to ICT facilities for ...