Information Technology Infusion Model for Agricultural Sector in Nigeria

Abstract

In this paper, we identified Information & Communication Technology (ICT) devices used in the Nigerian agricultural sector and formulate infusion models for each identified ICT device. 200 structured questionnaires were used to collect information regarding the use of the ICT devices used among respondents of six (6) agricultural research and academic institutes selected from south-western Nigeria. Different ICT devices identified consisted of smartphones, Short Message Services (SMS), e-mail, computers, office hardware, wireless media technologies, global position satellites, geographical information systems, radio-frequency identification technology and automated systems. The results showed that majority of the respondents that adopted ICT were married males within the age groups of 31 – 50 years with less than 10 years of working experience using ICT devices at both work and on the field. The results of the study further showed that the earliest adopted ICT devices were computer and office hardware in 1994, e-mails in 1995, SMS and wireless technologies in 1998 and smartphones in 1999 - all adopted before the 21st century. The most adopted technology by more than 50% of the respondents were the computer, smartphones, SMS, e-mails, office hardware and wireless technologies in the discharge of their respective duties. Polynomial functions of degree m were used to formulate the infusion model for each ICT devices identified based on the yearly cumulative distribution of the number of users. The infusion models formulated can be used to estimate the number of users of ICT devices for any given year from the year of adoption of the ICT device