The Adoption of Digital Technologies for Sharing Information on Agriculture Among Farmers: Towards an Integrated Rural Technology Acceptance Model

Introduction

The use of ICTs has eased agricultural information communication among farmers but research suggests that there is low uptake of these technologies among farmers. This has resulted in limited access to information on the agricultural production process and early warning information on weather, markets, credit facilities, climate and pests and animal diseases. The limited access to information on agriculture has compromised farmers’ decision-making process resulting in poor yields among farmers. Limited usage of ICTs for agricultural communication has been a subject of research for many years and researchers have mostly used theories on technology acceptance. These researchers have often relied on contemporary technology acceptance theories and models and few have attempted to integrate these models and theories to develop a theory that can be used to study rural farmers’ acceptance of ICTs in agricultural communication. Among several models and theories that have been used to study technology acceptances are: Diffusion of Innovation model; Theory of Reasoned Action; Technology Acceptance Model, Theory of Planned Behaviour, Social Cognitive Theory, Motivational Model, Combined TAM and TPB, Model of PC utilization and The Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology. However, an examination of these theories and models generally reveals that none of these theories adequately addresses the factors that influence farmers’ acceptance and use of ICTs to share information on agriculture. This chapter seeks to develop an integrated model to study the acceptance and usage of ICTs among rural farmers. The chapter will review the above-mentioned contemporary technology acceptance models in rural agricultural environments. It further suggests how different models may then be integrated.

Methodology

This chapter reviews literature from refereed journal articles selected from academic databases. Key databases from which these journal articles are shown in Table 1 below:

Table 1.

Article distribution

Database	Number of articles
Elsevier	15
EmeraldInsight	6
Frontiers	6
MDPI	22
Taylor and Francis	90
Heliyon	4
Jstor	8
Total	151

From this list Table 1 above, 72 were considered for review.

Inclusion Criteria

Key terms that were used to select journal articles were:

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  Technology acceptance models;

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  Farmers' adoption of technologies;

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  Validation of technology acceptance models;

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  Capital assets and ICT usage.

The review excluded articles on applications of technology acceptance theories in other disciplines other than agriculture. Taherdoost (2017)’s categorisation of technology acceptance models shown in Figure 1 below, guided the review in identifying theories to include in the review although, in this case, the author added UTAUT2 to the categorisation, acknowledging that technology acceptance and adoption research has undergone tremendous examination by many researchers.

Figure 1.

Adoption models and theories

(Taherdoost, 2017)