Analysis of E-Readiness of Agricultural Development Practitioners to Emerging Information Challenges: A Case Study of Research and Extension Personnel in South-Western Nigeria

Abstract

Information is crucial to developmental process and the emerging information age bringsaboutchallenges thatcallfora shiftin the waysofdissemination the resource. The study intends to assess the e-readiness the developmentpractitioner, research and extension personnel in the use of Information and Communication Technology(ICT) for their activities. Four research stations in South-west Nigeria were randomly selected for the study Data collected were described using frequencies and percentages while inferences were drawn using Spearman andPearson correlations. The study revealed that most of the digital ICT facilities were not available in the research stations. A test for significance between importance of the facilities to their work andavailable facilities show that only radio (r-0.571) andtelevision (0.549) were significant. Thismeans that thepractitioners'extent ofuse the availableICTfacilitieshasnotbeendeep enough to informcorrectperception ofthe relevant facilities for theirwork schedule. The ICT formats that were significant are both analogue formats that have been in use to a certain extent. The test for relationship between level of knowledge andavailability and use of the ICT facilities showed that lack of adequate knowledge affected the choice of ICT formats indicated by the practitioners as important for their work.