Global Journal of Science Frontier Research, D: Agriculture and Veterinary, Volume 22 Issue 1

in Ekiti State, Nigeria. The specific objectives of the study were to; describe the socio-economic characteristics of arable crop farmers in the study area; determine the farmers’ awareness of various ICTs among the respondents in the study area; determine the level of use of ICTs among the respondents in the study area, determine factors influencing the use of ICTs among farmers in the study area; and identify the constraints to the use of ICTs among farmers. II. M aterials and M ethod The study area was Ekiti State. The state is located in the Southwest Nigeria within the tropics. It is predominantly an agrarian state with food crops grown such as cassava, yam, cocoyam, vegetables, and grains such as maize, rice etc. The state has two main seasons i.e. the rainy season and dry season. A multi- stage sampling procedure was employed in the selection of the respondents in the study area. Firstly, four Local Government Areas (LGAs)were randomly selected. The second stage involved selecting three farming communities from each LGAs randomly. Lastly, there was a random selection of ten (10) arable farmers from each of the communities, making a sample size of one hundred and twenty (120) arable farmers. A well- structured interview schedule was employed in the collection of primary data. Descriptive statistics such as mean, frequency counts and percentages were used to analyse objective 1. Likert-type scale was employed to measure objective 2as Very Much Aware (4), Much Aware (3), Aware (2), and Not Aware (1). The mean score of the scaling statement is 2.5. Therefore, any mean score value greater or equal to 2.5 was regarded as Aware while any mean score value less than 2.5 was regarded as Not Aware. Objective 3 was also measured using Likert-type scale as Regularly used (4), Occasionally used (3), Rarely used (2), and Not used (1) with any mean score value greater or equal to 2.5 was regarded as used while any mean score value less than 2.5 was regarded as Not Used. Objective 5 was also measured using Likert-type scale as Very Severe (4), Severe (3), Less Severe (2), and Not Severe (1). The mean score point of the scaling statement was 2.5 and ranked in descending order. Inferential statistics such as Multiple Regression analysis was used to analyse objective 4. The model was specified in its explicit form thus; Y = f (b o + b 1 X 1 +b 2 X 2 +b 3 X 3 + b 4 X 4 + b 5 X 5 + b 6 X 6 +e) Y = Use of ICTS by the respondents b o = Constant b 1 – b 6 = Coefficients of multiple regression X 1 = Age of the respondents (years) X 2 = Farming experience (years) X 3 = Gender (male=1, female= 0) X 4 = Educational level (formal education = 1, no formal education =0) X 5 = Household size (persons) X 6 = Level of awareness of ICTs e = Error term III. R esults and D iscussion a) Socio-economic characteristics of the respondents The mean age was 47years. This implies that most of the respondents were in their active age. The result revealed that most of the respondents were males (66.7%), married (73.3%), and had a mean household size of 5 persons. It was also that the respondents mostly (95.8%) had formal education. This could enhance the utilization of ICTs among the farmers. The mean years of experience for the respondents was 23 years and mostly (55.8%) had contact with extension agents. The use of Information and Communication Technologies among Farmers in Ekiti State, Nigeria © 2022 Global Journals 1 Year 2022 28 Global Journal of Science Frontier Research Volume XXII Issue ersion I VI ( D )