Busisiwe Alant|Olusegun Bakare
A case study of the relationship between smallholder farmers' ICT literacy levels and demographic data w.r.t. their use and adoption of ICT for weather forecasting
University of KwaZulu-Natal|University of KwaZulu-Natal
food insecurity caused climate change become one main issues global agenda worldwide importance digital tools means enhance adaptive capacity resilience smallholder farmers shfs face climate variability long recognised technologybased systems agriculture frequently neglect consider actual context use adoption shfs rural developing contexts conditions pointed literature range high illiteracy rates poor technology infrastructure requirement smartphonebased technology shfs developing world take advantage however little known information communication technology ict literacy levels shfs general terms supporting farming decisions paper therefore explores ict literacy levels msinga shfs order understand could enhance use adoption ict weather forecasting msinga hotspot climate change consequently means livelihood shfs municipality negatively impactedvolunteering sampling used 35 shfs purposively selected population 100 shfs belong asisukume msinga agricultural cooperative amac irrigation farmers sequential transformative mixed method design embedded indigenous research framework employed paper reports quantitative aspects study addressed following two research questions msinga shfs ict literacy capability levels ii relationship shfs ict levels demographic data wrt adoption ict tools agricultural practices data collected using demographic details questionnaire examining age marriage educational level years farming experience assessment ict literacy assessing 5 ict literacy skills included mobile phone symbol identification advanced ict literacy data analysed using descriptive inferential statistics specifically use spearman rankorder correlation using ibm statistical package social science spss version 20the results suggest ict literacy levels shfs able display use various ict related skills exception ict levels 1 2 satisfactory display ict literacy displayed among shfs examining associations ict literacy levels demographic variables significant negative associations found ict literacy levels age well years experience significant positive associations found ict literacy levels educational level results furthermore suggest marital status correlation ict literacy proficiencythe findings arising study highlight importance context helping shfs mitigate threats climate change food production issue completely ignored curriculum policies policies aimed integrated national adaptation responses climate change impact vulnerability