Use of Mobile Phones by Farming Community and Its Impact on Vegetable Productivity

Pakistan J. Agric. Res. Vol. 27 No.1, 2014 USE OF MOBILE PHONES BY FARMING COMMUNITY AND ITS IMPACT ON VEGETABLE PRODUCTIVITY

Naveed Jehan*, Khalid Mahmood Aujla**, Muhammad Shahzad*, Abid Hussain**, Muhammad Zahoor*, Majid Khan* and Ahmed Bilal*

ABSTRACT:- In Pakistan, telecommunication tools like television, radio and mobile phone are playing important role in agriculture productivity enhancement, growth and farmers’ prosperity. Mobile phone helps farmers in getting information about commodity prices in different markets. The farmers can get up-to-date information about various markets in different regions and can accordingly arrange transportation and labor services in time. The study was conducted to see the effect of timely information availability with mobile on productivity. The data was collected through well structured questionnaire by interviewing 60 farmers from district Charsadda. The data was analyzed through simple averages, correlation analysis and paired t-test. Average yield of bitter gourd crop was 23569 kg acre-1 with cell phone use of 8h per season. It is perceived that low communication cost and availability of information about wholesale market prices through SMS service and low cost calling packages will help farmers and market agents in improving bitter gourd production and its marketing, respectively.

Key Words: Bitter Gourd; Mobile Phone; Productivity; Correlation Analysis; Pakistan.

INTRODUCTION than perfect information, volatile markets to manipulation and unin- Agriculture needs to cater for the formed decisions. Farmer's partici- needs of diverse customer in terms of pation in market and transport man- food and raw materials. Technolo- agement is so poor that most of the gical intervention in the form of mac- time they are being forced to sell their hines, equipments and procedures is products to local middlemen at dum- helping in the preservation and envir- ped prices (FAO, 2001). Telecommu- onmental protection. Being practiced nication and specifically mobile in open environment, surrounding phones have the potential to provide conditions affect agriculture produ- solution to the existing information ction in various ways (Munack and asymmetry in the sectors like Speckmann, 2001). Despite high agriculture (Mittal et al., 2009). Radio claims of government, investment in and television has been acclaimed to agriculture and rural development is be the most effective media for still low. Farmers are subject to less diffusing the scientific knowledge to

* PARC Institute of Advance Studies in Agriculture, Social Sciences Research Institute, National Agricultural Research Centre, Islamabad, Pakistan. ** Social Sciences Division, Pakistan Agricultural Research Council, Islamabad, Pakistan. Corresponding author: [email protected]

58 NAVEED JEHAN ET AL. the masses while, television is ackno- situation to all i.e., producers, market wledged as the most important med- agents and consumers as well. The ium for communicating with the rural long distance from farm to market is populations of developing countries hampering the gathering of infor- (FAO, 2001). Most often, few agricul- mation about prices but mobile tural programmes are not timed to phone can efficiently fulfill this gap as suit the farmers. Consequently, most it provides timely information about farmers are constrained to rely on the market situation. In vegetables, third parties for agricultural infor- bitter gourd has an important place mation, which may often be biased and mostly grown for commercial (Nazari and Hassan, 2011). Impro- purpose in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. ving information services through Requirement of inputs is high and telecommunication technology has a diverse than other crops which proven positive impact on rural intensify the need for mobile phone. incomes. In Peru, 13% increase in per Arranging for the inputs in time and capita farm income was observed due selling in high priced markets has a to mobile phone technology (Chong et positive impact on vegetable produc- al., 2005). Access to public tele- tivity. This study has a focus on the phones and especially individual linkages between use of mobile phone mobile phones improves agricultural and bitter gourd productivity in productivity, increases market access Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. and expands marketing options for rural producers (Jansen et al., 2006). MATERIALS AND METHOD Mobile phone technology has provided opportunities for increasing The study was based on primary productivity and reducing socio- data, collected through proportionate economic inequalities in Bangladesh random sampling technique using (Islam and Gronlund, 2011). Litera- structured questionnaire in Char- ture reveals that mobile phone has sadda district. The District comp- been used for warning against bad rises three tehsils namely, Charsadda weather to the fishing communities. It khas, Tangi and Shabqadar. Two is necessary to evaluate its role in the tehsils (Charsadda khas and Tangi) farmers decisions about market were selected on the basis of area participation. under bitter gourd. Four villages In Pakistan, vegetables are (Shakh No. 6, Harichand, Mandani, mostly sold in auction type markets Thor Dher) from Tangi whereas, which are located at some distance Sarki, Zarbab Garhi, Behlola and from one another. Cell phone use can Gardhai were selected from tehsil help in reducing farmers and mar- Charsadda khas on the basis of their keting agents in getting the price shares in production. Sample of 60 information from different markets to farmers was selected from farmers of avoid the transportation cost involved bitter gourd on the basis of 95% from one market to other and enable confidence level and 10% confidence them to sell their vegetables in time. interval (Shahzad et al., 2013). Data An important assumption of market- was analyzed by using STATA-12. ing is existence of transparent /per- Correlation analysis as per fect information about the market following was used to determine the

59 USE OF MOBILE PHONE IN FARMING COMMUNITIES relationship between cell phone used years with a standard deviation of 11 hours and bitter gourd productivity years indicating the involvement of which quantifies the extent to which relatively young segment of popu- two quantitative variables, X (cell lation in the bitter gourd production. phone used hours) and Y (produc- Level of the farmers' education and tivity of bitter gourd kg acre-1) are experience was 7.6 and 5.1 years on correlated (Gujarati, 2004). the average with farm size of 1 acre. Other studies revealed more age, experience and relatively low level of education for the vegetable growers in other parts of the province (Tahir and As most of the farmers used other Altaf, 2013). Farmers applied 14 bags inputs in the same proportion so they per acre of different fertilizers on the were divided into two groups i.e., max average with standard deviation of (maximum cell phone hours consu- 7.8 showing that some farmers had med) and min (minimum cell phone applied fertilizers less than the hours consumed) on the basis of cell required. Farmers consumed 7h air phone time (hours). Difference of pro- time in raising 23569 kg acre-1 of ductivity was analyzed through pai- bitter gourd production by employing red t-test. Treating the difference as 191 labor man days and 43 irri- random sample from a normal popu- gations on the average. It was lation with mean mD = mmax - mmin observed that bitter gourd is much and unknown standard deviation sD more profitable than other competing one sample t-test was performed on crops (Table 1). them. The testing hypothesis procedure Table 1. Farmers characteristics for paired t-test is given as under; Testing hypothesis Ho : µmax = Characteristics Mean + SD µmin (No difference in the productivity of both groups) Age (years) 32.0 + 11.0

And the alternative is H1: µmax > Experience (years) 5.1 + 3.7 µmin (Productivity of max group are Education (years) 7.6 + 4.7 more than min group) Bitter gourd area 1.0 + 0.7 Test statistics (acre-1) d¯ Fertilizer (bags acre-1) 14.0 + 7.8 t = ————__ sd/Ön No. of cell phone (h) 7.0 + 3.8 with v = n – 1 degrees of freedom Self visit time (h) 17.0 + 8.4 at 0.05 significant level. Irrigation (No.) 43.0 + 9.6 Insecticide expend. 1126.0 + 766.4 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION (Rs.) Labor (man days) 191.0 + 93.0 Characteristics and Practices of Productivity 23569.0 + 20160.8 Farmers -1 Descriptive analysis of farmers (kg acre ) revealed that their mean age was 32 Source: Field Survey, 2012

60 NAVEED JEHAN ET AL. Inputs Use and Average Yield bargaining power of the farmers Access to inputs have positive which helped them in setting a base effect on crop productivity (Randria- price for their produce. Selling at narisoa and Minten, 2005). It was higher prices enable farmers to earn found that farmers used intensively more income and in turn they applied mobile phone for the arrangement of sufficient inputs for better yield (Muto different inputs. Farmers were divid- and Yamano, 2008). ed into three categories on the basis of farm size i.e., small (≤1.5 acres), med- Correlation Analysis of Mobile ium (1.51 - 2.95 acres) and large (> Phone used (hours) and Produc- 2.96 acres) (Husain et al., 2001). tivity Results revealed that small farmers Results revealed moderate and had more intensive use of inputs than positive correlation of 0.6848 bet- medium and large farmers on per ween mobile phone use (h) and bitter acre basis and same is reported by gourd productivity (kg acre-1). There is Chen et al. (2011). Yield level (35469 no big vegetable market in Charsadda kg) of small farmers was quiet higher and farmers rely on mobile phone to than the other two groups. Overall take price information from different yield was 23569 kg by the application markets across the province. Far- of 8 cell phone hours, 14 self visit mers in Charsadda had contacts with hours and fertilizers bags with 43 many diverse markets which enabled irrigations on the average. Mobile them to fetch higher prices for their phone enabled the farmers to devote produce, helping to obtain higher more time to their crops by saving yields. In addition to mobile phone their travel time to get market infor- there were many other necessary mation. More use of mobile phone inputs having role in the productivity enabled small farmers to receive of the crop. It was observed that higher price of Rs. 11.5 kg-1 for their mobile phone is used for arranging produce by using 12h air time. On the various inputs like wooden poles, other hand large farmers received steel wire, thread, used cycle tyres, average price of Rs. 9.4 kg-1 with 4h seed, fertilizers, water, transport and air time (Table 2). It is clear that taking price information from various mobile phone has increased the markets. It was also revealed that

Table 2. Inputs used by farm size

Farm size Freq. (%) Cell Self Fer. No. Total Price Yield -1 phone visit (50 kg of Irr. cost (Rs.) (Rs.kg ) (kg) (h) (h) bags)

Small 16 (26) 12 18.1 21.5 44 111403 11.5 35469

Medium 18 (30) 8 12.2 15.4 45 77984 10.9 23502

Large 26 (44) 4 12.0 7.9 42 59361 9.4 16293 Total 60 (100) 8 14.0 14.0 43 78826 10.6 23569

Source: Field survey, 2012.

61 USE OF MOBILE PHONE IN FARMING COMMUNITIES mobile phone facilitate the farmers cipation. Mobile phone use helped for arranging combined transport farmers in setting base price and which reduced transportation cost. choice of market. Mobile phone use Mobile phone enabled the farmers to has a positive impact on bitter gourd communicate with agricultural ex- productivity. Farm size has a negative pert in time of disease attack on the effect on the productivity due to input crop. These factors resulted in the intensive nature of bitter gourd farm- high correlation between cell phone ing. Following are few recommen- used (h) and crop productivity (kg dations based on the findings. acre-1). lAvailability of timely information Significance of the Relationship about wholesale level market pric- Between Mobile Phone Used es helps farmers in choice of mar- (Hours) and the Crop Productivity kets to fetch better prices of their Five hours consumed time was produce; set as threshold level for the classi- lMobile phone companies should fication of farmers into two groups. provide vegetable market price in- Farmers using more than five hours formation to the farmers through were placed in max group while the SMS service; others were placed min group. Paired lMobile phone companies should t-test revealed that max group had give low price call packages to far- higher yield than the min group. Our mers; null hypothesis of no difference bet- lMobile phone coverage should be ween the two groups was rejected. extended to the far flung rural Computed value of t-statistic at 95% areas; significant level confirmed the higher lAvailability of quality fertilizers yield for the max group and accep- and insecticides at reasonable pri- tance of alternate hypothesis (Table ces should be ensured; 3). lEasy credit availability should be ensured to the farmers; Table 3. Comparative analysis of lFarmers should be provided soil mobile phone and bitter testing services at affordable pri- gourd productivity ces to determine the requirements of various nutrients for the crop; Variables Mean+ S.E. Standard l deviation Extension workers should guide farmers regarding the application Max 32713.54 + 4477.198 24522.62 of various fertilizers in sufficient Min 14424.71 + 1323.788 7250.68 quantities; Diff 18288.82 + 4639.863 25413.58 lRoad infrastructure in the rural t = 3.9417 Observations = 30; dF = 29, Pr (T > t) = 0.0002 areas be improved for quick transportation. CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS LITERATURE CITED

Mobile phone proved to be a chea- Chen, Z., W. E. Huffman, and S. per source of getting information, Rozelle. 2011. Inverse rela- increased farmers' market parti- tionship between productivity

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