Relationship of e- extension services on food security projects among smallholders’ farmers :

Abstract

Smallholder farmers require adequate access to knowledge, information, and other necessary services to improve food security, E- extension services serve as an important tool to transfer knowledge, advice and educate farmers about new technology and practices to stimulate desirable agricultural developments for improving food security. The study consisted of six predictors identified for testing towards food security projects as the dependent variable. The predictors include weather forecasting information, disease and pesticide outbreak, financial services, access to agro inputs, access to output market and advisory services on good agronomics practices. Explanatory design was used to foster information gathering process by means of relationship testing between study variables with the information for the study gathered using questionnaires. The collected results from the field were computed in SPSS data sheet version 23.0 to generate relevant statistics useful to present the results. Findings indicated that four predictors among six tested including weather forecasting information, financial services, disease and pesticide outbreak and access to agro inputs were positive with significant effect statistically on food security projects with p<0.05. However, access to output market and advisory services on good agronomics practices were found positive with insignificant effect on food security projects with p>0.05. This implies that food security projects in Tanzania through e-extension services among smallholder farmers is influenced with weather forecasting information, financial services, disease and pesticide outbreak and access to agro inputs.