Gender-based Factors Influencing the Choice of Communication Media for Accessing Agricultural Information in Kilosa and Mvomero Districts, Tanzania

Abstract

The study examined socio-economic factors influencing the choice of communication media for accessing agricultural information among gender categories, that is, men, women, and youths in Kilosa and Mvomero districts of Tanzania. Data were collected from a sample of 240 selected farmers. Information was collected using structured and semi-structured interviews, and document reviews. The collected data were analyzed through descriptive, inferential and qualitative approaches. A multinomial logit was estimated to identify socio-economic factors such as age of a farmer in farming, education level, types of assets owned, farmer’s marital status, income and nature of farming enterprise in influencing the choice of communication media for accessing agricultural information among men, women, and youths. Results showed that the choice of either television or video or mobile phones or Internet or leaflets or booklets over radio was not statistically gender based. In addition, the choice of leaflets and television by famers over radio in rural areas was influenced by their education level and income at 1% and 3% level of significance respectively. The increase of 1.5 years in schooling influences the farmer to choose leaflets than radio. Similarly, increase of income by 0.3% influences him/her to choose television rather than radio. The income enables the farmer to increase his/her television purchasing power and meet related operational costs by 2%. Generally, the study concludes that the choice between television, video, mobile phones, Internet, leaflets, or booklets over radio was not influenced by gender. However, farmers with low education and income levels did not choose leaflets and television, respectively. The study recommends that policy-makers should formulate appropriate strategies for motivating farmers with low level of education to read leaflets and mobilizing financial resource to enable the government’s intervention on subsidizing television to boost its usage by low-income farmers for timely access to agricultural information.