Rural Women’s Information Seeking Behaviour on Household Food Security Issues in Bayelsa State, Nigeria
Abstract
Knowledge and information on scientific and technological issues is a necessary condition for rural women to achieve household food security. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to assess the information seeking behaviour of rural women on household food security issues in Bayelsa State, Nigeria. Multistage random sampling procedure was opted to select 120 rural women across twelve town communities in the State. Structured interview schedule was used for collection of data from the sampled respondents. The collected data were analysed using descriptive statistical tools in software Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS). Food security index was used to analyze the food security status of the respondents in the study area. Findings revealed that 61% of the respondents were food insecure, while 39% were food secure. Information on food security issues were mainly sourced from families (52.5%), friends/neighbours (46.7%) and other farmers (30.8%). The respondents perceived information on productive resources such as land, inputs and capital (M =1.18); as their most important information needs. The study further revealed that the respondents sought information on food preparation (88.5%), food processing (84.7%), and farming system (80.8%) from their families. They also had a low information seeking behaviour. The respondents perceived poor income (M = 1.55), and concealment of information by information providers (M = 1.35), among others, as barriers to seeking information. The study underlined the importance of a well-organized institutional information provision on agricultural technologies through extension services to rural women.
Keywords
References
Achugbue, E.I. & Anie, S.O. (2011). ICTs and information need of rural female farmers in Delta State, Nigeria. Library Philosophy and Practice. 10, 12-17.
Aina, L.O. (2004). Towards improving information access by semi- and non-literate groups in Africa: A need for empirical studies for their information-seeking and retrieval patterns. ProLISSA: Progress in Library and information Science in Southern Africa. Proceedings of the third biennial DISSAnet Conference, 28-29 October 2004 Farm Inn, Pretoria, South Africa. pp: 11-20.
Ajiboye, J. & Tella, A. (2007). University undergraduate students’ information seeking behaviour: implications for quality in higher education in Africa. The Turkish Online Journal of Educational Technology. 6 (1). Available online: http://www.tojet.net/articles/614.pdf
Akinyele, I.O. (2009). Ensuring food and nutrition security in rural Nigeria: An assessment of the challenges, information needs and analytical capacity. Nigeria Strategy Support Program (NSSP) Background Paper, No. NSSP 007, November, 2009, pp.10-30.
Alfred-Ockiya, J.F. (2000). Socio-economic activities of women in artisanal fisheries of the Niger Delta. Aquafield, 1: 1 – 7.
Anugwa, I.Q. & Agwu, A.E. (2016). Assessment of rural womens’ use of food security information in Bayelsa State, Nigeria. Journal of Agricultural and Food Information. DOI: 10.1080/10496505.2016.1217779.
Asres, E. (2005). Access and utilization of development communication by rural women in Dire Dawa Administrative Council, Eastern Ethiopia (M.Sc. Thesis). Alemaya University, p. 34.
Brhane, G., Mammo, Y. & Negusse, G. (2017). Sources of information and information seeking behaviour of smallholder farmers of Tanqa Abergelle, Wereda, central zone of Tigray, Ethiopia. Journal of Agricultural Extension and Rural Development, 9 (4), 47 – 52.
Case, D.O. (2002). Looking for information: A survey of research in information seeking needs, and behaviour. Amsterdam: Academic Press.
Case, D. O. (2006). Information behavior. Annual Review of Information Science and Technology, 40 (1), 293-327.
Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) (2007). Report of the second consultation on agricultural information management. Rome, Italy. Available on: http://www.fao.org/docrep/MEETING/005/Y7963E/.
Food and Agriculture Organization, FAO (2008). An introduction to the basic concepts of food security. Food Security Information for Action Practical Guides. EC – FAO Food Security Programme, Rome, p.1. Retrieved on July 5, 2016 from: http://www.fao.org/docrep/013/al936e/al936e00.pdf.
Fourie, I. (2004). A Theoretical model for studies on web information-seeking behaviour In ProLISSA. Progress in Library and Information Science in Southern Africa. Proceedings of the third biennual DISSAnet Conference 28-29th October 2004, Farm Inn, Pretoria, South Africa:.67-96.
Gundu, M. (2009). The effect of literacy on the access and utilization of agricultural information for household food security at Chirau communal lands in Zimbabwe (MSc. thesis). University of Fort Hare, pp.12-60.
Habtemariam A., Tegegni, G.E. & Azage, T. (2015). Agricultural knowledge management: The case of cattle feed quality improvement in Bure district west Gojjam, Ethiopia. Journal of Agricultural Extension and Rural Development, 7(1),1-7.
Ingwersen, P. (1996). Cognitive perspectives of information retrieval interaction: Elements of cognitive IR theory. Journal of Documentation, 52(1), 3-50.
Ikoja-Odongo, R. & Mostert, J. (2006). Information seeking behaviour: A conceptual framework. South African Journal of Library and Information Science, 72 (3), 145 – 158.
Johnson, J.D. (1997). Cancer-related information seeking. Creskill, NJ: Hampton Press.
Krikelas, J. (1983). Information-seeking behaviour: patterns and concepts. Drexel Library Quarterly, 19(2), 5-20.
Kuhlthau, C.C. (1991). Inside the search process: information seeking from the users perspective. Journal of the American Society of information Science, 42 (5), 361-371.
Lwoga, E.T. (2010). Bridging the agricultural knowledge and information divide: The case of selected telecenters and rural radio in Tanzania. The Electronic Journal of Information Systems in Developing Countries, 43 (6), 1-14.
Manda, P. (2002) Information and agricultural development in Tanzania: A critique. Information Development, 18 (3),181-189.
Masuki, K.F., Kamugisha, R., Mowo, J.G., Tanui, J., Tukahirwa, J., Mogoi, J. & Adera, E.O. (2010). Role of mobile phones in improving communication and information delivery for agricultural development: Lessons from South Western Uganda. ICT and development-research voices from Africa. International Federation for Information Processing (IFIP) technical commission 9-relationship between computers and society. Workshop at Makerere University, Uganda. 22-23 March.
Munyua, H. (1999). Application of ICTs in Africa’s agricultural sector: A gender perspective. A paper presented at the conference on Africa Women and Economic Development: Investing in our Future, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia on 28th April – 1st May, 1998.
Munyua, H. (2000). Information and communication technology for rural development and food security: Lessons from field experiences in developing countries. The Role of Information and Communication Technologies in Rural Development and Food Security. FAO, Rome, November, 2000.
National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) (2007). Social statistics in Nigeria. NBS, 2007.
Nigeria Galleria (2015). Bayelsa State, Nigeria. Retrieved July 5th, 2016 from: http://www.nigeriagalleria.com/Nigeria/States_Nigeria/Bayelsa_State.html.
Oladejo, J.A., Olawuyi, S.O. & Anjorin, T.D. (2011) Analysis of women’s participation in agricultural production in Egbedore Local Government Area of Osun State, Nigeria. International Journal of Agricultural Economics and Rural Development, 4 (1), 1 -11.
Oladele, O.I. (2006). Multilinguality of farm broadcast and agricultural information access in Nigeria. Nordic Journal of African Studies, 15 (2), 199 - 205.
Olawoye, J.E. (2001) Agricultural extension and gender issues on sustainable agricultural development. Proceedings the National Workshop on Agriculture and Rural Development in Nigeria, International Institute for Agriculture and rural Development, Feb. 14 – 18 , 2000, Jos, Plateau State, Nigeria, pp 104-121.
Omonona, B., Agoi, T. & Adetokunbo, G. (2007). An analysis of food security situation among Nigerian urban households: Evidence from Lagos State, Nigeria. Journal of Central of European Agriculture. 8 (3), 399-406.
Opara, U.N. (2010). Personal and socio-economic determinants of agricultural information use by farmers in the Agricultural Development Programme (ADP) zones of Imo state, Nigeria. Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal). Paper 434, pp. 3-5. Available at http://digital commons.unl.edu/libphilprac/434.
Prakash, D. (2003). Rural women, food security and agricultural cooperatives. New Delhi, India. pp. 1 – 35.
Sadaf, S., Javed, A. & Luqman, M. (2006). Preferences of rural women for agricultural information sources: A case study of district Faisalabad. Pakistan Journal of Agriculture and Social Sciences, 2 (3), 145-149.
Saleh, A.G. & Lasisi, F.J. (2011). Information needs and information seeking behaviour of rural women in Borno State, Nigeria. Library and Philosophy Practice, 23 – 29.
Sanusi, R. A, Badejo, C.A. & Yusuf, B.O. (2006). Measuring household food insecurity in selected local government areas of Lagos and Ibadan, Nigeria. Pakistan Journal of Nutrition, 5, 62-67.
Siyao, P.O. (2012). Barriers in accessing agricultural information in Tanzania with a gender perspective: The case study of small-scale sugar cane growers in Kilombero District. EJISDC, 51 (6), 1-19.
Tadesse, D. (2008). Access and utilization of agricultural information by resettler farming households: The case of Metema Woreda, North Gondar, Ethiopia (M.Sc. thesis). Hamaraya University, Hamaraya, pp. 1-187.
Wilson, T.D. (1999). Models in information behaviour research. Journal of Documentation, 55(3), 249-270.
Refbacks
- There are currently no refbacks.
Copyright (c) 2018 Ifeoma Q. Anugwa, Agwu E. Agwu
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.