Full
Length Research Paper
Adoption of E-Marketing Channels of Rice: A Case
of Rice Marketers in Ebonyi State
Obinna-Nwandikom,
C.O1., Anyiam, K.H1[*]., Okoro, F.N2.,
Isaiah, I.G1., Enoch, O.C1., and Onyia, E.O.1
1Department of Agricultural Economics, Federal
University of Technology Owerri, Imo State, Nigeria
2Department of Agricultural Economics, Michael
Okpara University of Agriculture, Umudike, Abia State Nigeria
ARTICLE
DETAILS ABSTRACT
1. Introduction
Agriculture is the
backbone of Nigeria. More than 60% of Nigerian workers are involved in
Agriculture, it is surprising that Nigeria is lagging in establishing an
e-commerce infrastructure that would contribute to economic development and the
transformation of traditional agricultural markets to a more progressive
market-oriented agricultural sector. In
other words, Agriculture refers to cultivating land and breeding animals and
plants to provide food, fibre, medicinal plants and other products to nurture
and upgrade life. The significant growth in Internet use and technology has
necessitated its use in many businesses, including agriculture (Brown and Baer,
2006) commented that despite the advantages associated with the Internet for
communicating with customers, providing information regarding their products,
and selling over the Web, little is known regarding how agricultural service
professionals perceive the use of technology in marketing. Nowadays, the
internet has become a growing means of communication and information
dissemination, many users of Facebook, WhatsApp, Twitter and other social media
platforms as means of displaying and marketing their wares to the general
public and this has become an effective business tool (International
Telecommunication Union, ITU, 2017).In this modern age, E-marketing provides
firms with the ability to reach new customers and old customers in new,
efficient and faster ways. In the same vein, e-marketing also allows firms to
tap new and old suppliers through new and innovative channels. These
possibilities have raised the expectations of improved efficiency and
substantial cost savings (Saban, and Timalsina 2016).
It is becoming
increasingly clear that Ebonyi State is acquiring a national and international
reputation for producing rice. This reputation is founded upon the availability
of a superb natural setting of a rain-fed upland environment especially on the
Abakaliki lands of South-Eastern Nigeria (Mbam, 2014). However, of all
rice-producing towns in Ebonyi State, E-marketing of rice has been limited
because of a lack of awareness and practice of e-commerce in Ebonyi State.
Limited studies have analyzed the adoption of e-marketing channels for rice in
Ebonyi State, thereby leaving an information gap that the study will be
designed to fill. Despite several studies on rice production in Nigeria, very
little is known about the awareness of e-marketing of rice by rice farmers in
Ebonyi State.
E-marketing
channels would have become one of the most embracing trends in Nigeria's
Agribusiness sector due to the high influx of internet users. However, the high cost of accessing internet
services has restrained many rice farmers who would have used e-marketing to
get their products to the general public. Secondly, due to the high illiteracy
level among rice farmers in Ebonyi State, most of them have no computer
knowledge and awareness thereby restricting their usage of internet services to
enable them to display their products on the web. In addition to this, most
buyers prefer cash payment due to their mistrust of online shopping as a result
of the growing trend of internet fraudsters who developed online marketing
platforms to scam innocent customers. There's also this challenge of
non-internet security and strong internet security, sometimes rice farmers may
enter fake websites or fake online portals. This may lead to a waste of time
and input.
To resolve this
daunting task facing rice farmers in Ebonyi State, the research will tend to
address the following objectives
Objective of the
Study
i.
To describe the
socio-economic features of the rice marketers in the study area,
ii.
To determine the
adoption level of the e-marketing channel of rice in the area,
iii.
To determine the
factors affecting the level of adoption of e-marketing channels of rice farmers
in the study area,
2.
Materials and Methods
This study was conducted in Ebonyi State, South East Nigeria. The state has 13 local Government Areas and 3
Agricultural zones namely Ebonyi North, Ebonyi Central and Ebonyi South. The
state has a land mass of approximately 5,932 km2 and lies within
latitudes 40N and 140N of the Equator and Longitudes 30E
and 150E of Green which is meridian.
The state has a population of about 2.8 million people (National
Population Commission,(NPC) 2013), an average rainfall of 1200mm-2000mm with
temperature ranging from 330 in the dry season and 160 to
180 in the rainy season (Ebonyi Agricultural Development
Programme,(EBADEP), Annual Record, 2005). Rice farming is predominantly
practised by farmers in the state. The multi-stage sampling technique,
purposive and random sampling techniques was adopted for this study. In the
first stage, the Abakaliki and Ohaozara Local Government Area was purposively
selected because of the high concentration of rice farming activities in the
area. In the second stage, two (2) communities were randomly selected from each
of the two local government areas selected, making a total of four (4)
communities. In the third stage, three (3) villages were randomly selected from
the four (4) communities making it a total of twelve (12) villages.
In the final stage, five
(5) rice farmers were selected randomly from the list of registered rice
farmers in the 12 villages giving every farmer an equal chance to be selected,
making a total of 60 rice farmers. Hence the 60 rice farmers formed the sample
size for this study. Descriptive statistics like percentage and frequency table
were used to describe the socio-economic characteristics of the rice farmers in
the study area, The Adoption Index model was used to determine the adoption
level of e-marketing channels in the study area. A six (6) by fourteen (14)
matrix was designed which showed the number of e-marketing channels the
respondents participated in and the total number of marketing channels in the
study area. A score will be assigned at different stages of participation. The
model is specified as follows:
AI = 
…………………………..3.1
Decision rule
If Adoption Index (AI)
> 0.5 partially adopted e-marketing channel,
If Adoption Index (AI) < 0.5 not adopted
e-marketing channel and
If Adoption Index (AI) =
1, full adoption
If Adoption Index (AI) =
0, not aware of e-marketing channel
Ordinary Least Square
multiple regression techniques were used to determine the factors affecting the
level of adoption of e-marketing channels in the study area.
The model is specified
as:
Y = f(X1, X2,
X3, X4, … Xn)
……………………………………………………………….3.2
Where Y = proxy for
Adoption Index.
Y = …………………………………3.3
X1 = Age
(years)
X2 = Level of
education (years)
X3 = Cost of
internet data (N)
X4 = Years of
internet usage (years)
X5 =Quantity
sold online (bags)
X6 = Network
availability (Full network = 1, Otherwise = 0)
X7 =
Marketing Experience (years)
X8 =
Estimated profit (N)
X9 = Number
of times used e-marketing
Ei = Error
Term
The functional forms
that will be fitted are Linear, Semi-log, Double log and Exponential.
3. Results and Discussion
3.1 Socio-economic characteristics of the marketers
Socio-economic
characteristics of the farmers are presented in Table 1
Table
1 Socio-economics characteristics of the farmers
|
Variables |
Frequency |
Percentage |
|
Age 20 – 39 40 – 59 60 – 79 Total Mean
|
30 28 2 60 40 |
50 46.7 3.3 100 |
|
Gender
Male Female Total |
32 28 60 |
53.3 46.7 |
|
Marital
status Married Single Others Total |
54 5 1 60 |
90 8.3 1.7 100 |
|
Household
size 0 – 4 5 – 9 10 – 14 Total
Mean
|
16 41 3 60 6 |
26.7 68.3 5 100 |
|
Marketing
experience 0 – 5 6 – 11 12 – 17 18 – 23 Total Mean |
4 25 18 13 60 13 |
6.7 41.7 30 21.7 100 |
|
Level
of education 0 – 6 7 – 13 14 – 20 Total Mean |
10 30 20 100 11 |
16.7 50 33.3 100 |
Source: Field Survey
Data, 2021
Table 1 shows that the
mean age of the marketers is 40 years. This implies that the rice marketers
were very young and active, capable of undertaking all the activities
associated with rice marketing in the study area. However, their ages also have
an impact on the adoption of e-marketing channels. This agreed with the
findings of Adepoju (2018), that age is an integral consideration in the
adoption of e-marketing.
The Table further showed
that the greater percentage of marketers in the study area were male. This
implies that rice marketing was male dominated. This could be attributed to the
weights of rice in bags which may be too heavy for the women. This finding does
not agree with the findings of Anthony and Anyalor, (2019) who reported that
the percentage of women is higher than male in the marketing and production of
locally produced rice in Abakiliki in Ebonyi State, Nigeria.
The table also showed
that 90% of the rice marketers were married, 8.3% of the rice marketers were
single and 1.7% of the rice marketers were either widows or widowers. This is
an indication that rice marketers in the study area were mostly married. This
result is in tandem with the findings of Anthony and Anyalor (2019).
Furthermore, Table 1
also indicates that the mean household size of the rice marketers was
approximately 6 persons per household. Household size may affect the
consumption of the marketers. Marketers with large household sizes, spend more
of their profit on consumption thereby affecting their savings. This finding
agreed with the finding of Nwahia, O.C., (2020), which reported that the
average household size in Ebonyi farming households is 6 persons per household.
In addition, the Table
shows the mean marketing experience of the rice marketers was 13 years of
marketing experience. This implies that the marketers were well experienced in
the knowledge of rice marketing, having spent up to 13 years marketing rice in
the study area. Experience is an integral factor that helps marketers to handle
marketing risk.
Finally, Table 1 shows
that the mean years the rice marketers spent in school was 11 years. This
showed that the majority of the marketers had a secondary school level of
education; the result implies that the majority of the marketers were literate
enough to understand marketing rudiments to improve their income. This agrees
with the result of Anthony and Anyalor (2019).
3.2 Adoption level of e-marketing
The level of adoption of
e-marketing channels were estimates using adoption index
Y =
Number of e-marketing
channel the respondent participated were 9
Total number of
marketing channels in the study area were 14
Adoption index =
Adoption index = 0.68
The
result shows that rice marketers partially adopted e-marketing channels in the
study area. This implies that the marketers were unwilling to embrace full
participation in e-marketing Channel of rice.
Table 2 Determinants of factors affecting level of adoption
|
Explanatory variable |
Linear function |
Exponential function |
+ Semi-log function |
Double-log function |
|
Constant Age
Level
of education Cost
of internet data Year
of internet usage Online
sales Network
availability Marketing
experience Estimated
profit No
of times used internet R2 Adj.
R2 F-ratio |
-35.780 (-0.941) -0.343 -(0.441) 2.994 (1.671)* 0.013 (1.762)* -1.090 -(0.193) 0.030 (0.214) 7.520 (0.447) 4.495 (3.557)*** -1.926E-5 -(0.195) 0.414 (2.325)** 0.441 0.341 4.385*** |
2.675 (4.518)*** -0.004 -(0.340) 0.049 (1.691)* 1.001 (1.947)* 0.013 (0.146) 0.002 (0.966) -0.223 -(0.850) 0.048 (2.457)** -3.078E-7 -(0.202) 0.004 (1.521)* 0.397 0.285 3.443*** |
-389.981 -(1.811)* -14.272 -(0.232) 47.103 (1.725)* 24.878 (1.506)* -12.065 -(0.324) -15.595 -(1.299) 8.562 (2.431)** 73.932 (2.776)** 6.178 (0.476) 21.399 (1.776)* 0.533 0.363 3.138*** |
-3.057 (1.054) 0.861 (1.048) 0.485 (1.793)* 0.329 (1.171) 0.013 (0.024) -0.142 -(0.839) -0.341 (-0.431) 0.284 (0.798) -0.033 -(0.193) 0.212 (1.307) 0.429 0.212 1.974* |
Source: Field
Survey Data, 2021. Values in parenthesis are t-ratio, * = significant at 10%,
** = significant at 5%, *** = significant at 1% and + = lead equation.
Table
2 showed that the semi-log functional form provided the lead equation based on
having the highest value of the coefficient of multiple determinations (R2),
the highest numbers of significant variables, the highest F-value and
conformity with a priori expectations.
The
value of the coefficient of multiple determinations (R2) was 0.533,
which implies that 53.3% of the variation of factors affecting the adoption
level of the e-marketing channel in the study area was accounted for by the
explanatory variables in the model. Variables such as level of education, cost
of internet data, network availability, marketing experience, and number of times used e-marketing channel
were significant at 5%, 10% and 1%
respectively, while variables such as age, year of internet usage, values of online
sales, and income were not significant at
any level respectively. The coefficient of the level of education was
significant at ten per cent and positively related to factors affecting the
adoption level of e-marketing channels in the study area. This implies that the
level of education positively affects adoption. Marketers who are educated and
understand marketing strategies to attract large volumes of transactions using
e-marketing channels to remain in the business,
The coefficient of cost of internet data was
significant at 10% per cent and was positively related to factors affecting
adoption of e-marketing channel. This implies that any increase in cost of
internet data, the level of adoption will decrease but if otherwise, the
adoption level of the e-marketing channel will increase. The coefficient of
network availability was significant at five per cent and positively related to
factors affecting the adoption of e-marketing channels. This implies that good
network reception increases the adoption of e-marketing channels in the study
area as rice marketers will take advantage of all the marketing opportunities
and platforms to make their products visible to the entire online communities.
The
coefficient of marketing experience was significant at five per cent and
positively related to factors affecting the adoption of e-marketing channels.
This implies that experience is a veritable tool for additional sales through
the use of internet facilities to build a large network of communities who may
not be able to come to the physical market to buy but can order their rice through
the use of an e-marketing channel.
The
coefficient of the number of times used e-marketing was significant at ten per
cent and positively related to factors affecting the adoption of e-marketing.
This implies that the number of times e-marketing is used determines the extent
of awareness created for rice in the global market in the study area.
4.
Conclusion
The study focused on the
adoption of e-marketing channels for rice. A case study in Ebonyi State
Nigeria. The study showed that most of the rice marketers were within the
economically active age with appropriate educational attainment, married,
mostly male and were well experienced in rice marketing. It was also seen that
the marketers partially adopted e-marketing channels of rice in the study area.
The results of the factors affecting level of adoption of e-marketing channels
showed that semi-log function was chosen as the lead equation. The significant
determinants of level of adoption of e-marketing channels were level of
education, cost of internet data, network availability, marketing experience
and number of times used e-marketing in the study area.
5. References
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