Current Status of e-Agriculture and Global Trends: A Survey Conducted in TransNzoia County, Kenya

Information Technology (IT) has long been viewed as having great potential for improving decision making in agriculture. In all phases of the agricultural industry, information technologies are vital to the management and success of a business. The development of agriculture depends on how fast and relevant information is provided to the end users. e-Agriculture is a recent term that defines a global community practice, where people from all over the world exchange information, ideas, and resources related to the use of information and communication technologies (ICT) for sustainable agriculture and rural development. Although a lot of research has been conducted in this area, minimal research has been conducted to ascertain the penetration of e-Agriculture in TransNzoia County. The main aim of this paper was to investigate farmers awareness, usage and perception of e-Agriculture in TransNzoia County. The study used quantitative survey design technique to collect data from farmers in TransNzoia County on awareness, perception and usage of different e-Agriculture techniques such as m-Agriculture and e-Commerce. The results obtained indicated the level of awareness in terms of deployment and adoption of e-Agriculture. This study found out that while majority of farmers in TransNzoia County were aware of e-Agriculture practises, deployment and adoption is still a pipedream. The findings of this study provide a framework to be used by different stakeholders in agriculture in TransNzoia County to implement an e-Agriculture platform that supports marketing of agricultural produce.