The Assessment of Gender-Based Participation in Agricultural Digitization in Obi Local Government Area, Nasarawa State, Nigeria

Abstract

Agriculture is recognized as an engine of growth at local and international levels as it has the potentials to improve food security of a country. Gender disparities in agriculture are mainly characterized by unequal access to agricultural inputs. The current wave of increased crisis over land tenure between farmers and herders in Nigeria calls for serious concern. Agricultural digitization has created a veritable opportunity for women to scale through modern day agricultural barriers. Therefore, we seek to address three major objectives, which are to; assess the factors affecting gender participation in agriculture, evaluate the level of agricultural digitization among farming households and determine gender-based constraints to agricultural activities in the study area. A total number of eighty (80) respondents were interviewed to generate the data for this research. The results revealed that majority (78.8%) of the household heads were male while (21.2%) were females. Furthermore, the result shows that men and women participated averagely in agricultural activities with the mean level of 2.48 and 2.43 respectively. On the adoption of agricultural digitization, result shows that majority of the respondents do not have access to digital tools and therefore, find it challenging to adopt new innovations. Also, the female gender faces more challenges that hinder them from participating in agricultural activities in the study area than men. The study therefore recommended that deliberate efforts needs to be put in place to enhance digitalization of agricultural activities among male and females in Obi LGA of Nasarawa State, Nigeria.