Information and Communication Technology Adoption in the Floricultural Farms in Kenya

Abstract

ICTs have been introduced in the agriculture and food sectors, improving production as well as transportation of agricultural products to the end consumers. The uptake of these solutions has however been slow for various reasons. A key challenge for ICT in various sectors such as agriculture has been information management, both within specific domains and across the whole supply chain from farm to fork, a factor further compounded by specific characteristics of the agricultural sector, which includes the very large number of actors along the supply-chain and the heterogeneity of those actors. The study sought to establish information technology adoption in the horticultural firms in Kenya with the objectives as; to determine the extent of ICT adoption by floricultural farms in Kenya, to establish the drivers of ICTs adoption by the floricultural farms in Kenya and to establish the challenges of ICTs adoption by the floricultural farms in Kenya. The study surveyed the floricultural farm managers. It employed a cross sectional descriptive survey design; targeting 45 managers from each of the 45 sampled horticultural firms. Primary data were collected using questionnaires, analysed using percentages, frequencies, mean, standard deviation and regression analysis and results presented using figures and tables. It established that computer storage and servers, internet and emails, Office, procurement and accounting automation systems such as sage pastel, Dan soft, Dynamics Navision and computerized irrigation and fertigation systems as examples of ICT applications had been adopted in the floricultural farms. Lastly, the study established that other than technical, economic, functional and strategic drivers that were studied, other factors also play a role in ICT adoption as represented by the adjusted R2. This therefore means that other factors not studied in this research inform ICT adoption. Therefore, further research should be conducted to investigate those other drivers of the ICT adoption.