The Role of Managerial Competency on Information and Communication Technology, Access to Finance, Innovation and Agricultural Performance in Nigeria A Pilot Study

International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science (IJRISS) | Volume III, Issue XII, December 2019 | ISSN 2454–6186

The Role of Managerial Competency on Information and Communication Technology, Access to Finance, Innovation and Agricultural Performance in Nigeria A Pilot Study

Abubakar Mayaki, Prof Madya, Dr Kadzrina Abdul Kadir, Dr Emy Ezura A Jalil

Othman Yeop Abdullah Graduate School of Business, Malaysia

Abstract:-The purpose of this paper is to examine a few samples of data on the role of managerial competency on information and communication technology, access to finance, innovation on agricultural performance of small and medium farmers in Nigeria. Hence, to determine the reliability and validity of the instruments the Cronbach alpha was used. The SPSS version 25 was employed to analyze the few data collected from the small and medium farmers. The result revealed that the instruments are sufficiently reliable because all the Cronbach alpha of the instruments exceed the minimum tolerable level of .70.

Keywords: information and communication technology, access to finance, innovation, managerial competency, agricultural performance, pilot test, Nigeria

I. INTRODUCTION

Nigeria is the most populous country in Africa and food insecurity calls for the boosting of agricultural production in Nigeria. Agriculture is one of the main economic sectors in Nigeria providing employment for about 70% of the population of the country. An increase in agricultural productivity could not only improve food security, but also bring more income and enhanced well-being to Nigeria’s large rural population (Xie, You, & Takeshima, 2017). The largest producers of agricultural products in Nigeria are the small and medium farmers, and they constitute about 80 percent of Nigerian farmers producing 98 percent of agricultural products in Nigeria (Mgbenka, Mbah, & Ezeano, 2015). Therefore, some factors are identified to be essential in boost agricultural performance which include information and communication technology (McNamara, Belden, Kelly, Pehu, & Donovan, 2017; Sun, Hou, & Li, 2017; Zhang, Wang, & Duan, 2016), access to finance (Adeola & Ikpesu, 2016; Ahmad, Jan, Ullah, & Pervez, 2015; Ayaz & Hussain, 2011) and innovation (Alston &Pardey, 2016; Andersen, 2015; Sauer, 2017).

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