IMPACT OF ADOPTION OF AGRICULTURAL INFORMATION TECHNOLOGIES ON LIVELIHOOD OF IRRIGATION RICE FARMERS IN YOBE STATE NIGERIA

The study examined the examine the Impact of Adoption of Agricultural Information Technologies on Income and Level of living among Irrigation Rice Farmers in Yobe State Nigeria. Multi-stage sampling procedure was used to select 112 irrigation rice farmers for this study. Primary data were collected through the administration of structured questionnaire Descriptive statistics such as frequencies, percentages and inferential statistics such as paired T-test were used to analyze the data. The findings that 46.4% of the total sample were within the productive age bracket of 40-49 years. The result indicates that majority (78.6%) of the irrigation rice farmers were male, while the remaining 21.4% are female. The results of the paired sample t-test conducted a substantial increase in income is noteworthy, with the mean income escalating from 2.1185 (SD = N139,872) prior to adoption to 3.5785 (SD =N192,285) afterward improvements in the income of the rice farmers. The mean score for the level of living increased from 1.4661 (SD = 1.03786) before technology adoption to 2.35446 (SD = 9.72888) afterward. The findings reveal a diverse array of challenges hindering technology adoption within the agricultural sector. Subsidy removal or petrol pump price fluctuations (9.4%) and inadequate capital (9.0%) ranking prominently among the top constraints ranked as first and second. Based on the findings. The study recommended that government and Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) efforts should focus on policies and programmes that will further enhance the irrigation rice farmer’s livelihood.