Factors affecting adoption of mobile phone applications among farmers in Lilongwe, Malawi: The case of Mchikumbe 212

The Ministry of Agriculture, through the Department of Agriculture Extension Services, intensified the use of ICTs in Agriculture extension as one way of mitigating the high extension worker to farmer ratio in Malawi. ICT-based agricultural extension in Malawi has evolved from using traditional ICT tools to modern ones. Of interest to this study is the Mchikumbe 212 platform. This service was launched by Airtel Malawi, in partnership with the Human Network International (HNI) in September 2015. The service aims to transform farming by increasing farmers’ access to information and advisory services. It provides farmers with access to practical information about agriculture via interactive voice response and short messaging services, where farmers listen to agriculture extension advisory services on a crop of their choice on their mobile phones by dialing 212. However, the adoption of the Mchikumbe 212 platform has not been satisfactory as the number of registered users has decreased since its launch. The study, therefore, aimed at analysing the factors affecting the adoption or rejection of the Mchikumbe 212 platform among farmers in Malawi. Data was collected using face-to-face interviews with both adopter and non-adopter farmers of the technology drawn from Lilongwe district. Key informant interviews were also conducted with officials from Airtel Malawi, Ministry of Agriculture and Human Network International. The study finds that there are several factors that both positively and negatively affect the adoption of the technology. Farmers who adopted the Mchikumbe 212 platform found it easy to use and navigate, convenient, affordable and accessible, and that it gave timely and relevant information for direct application in their gardens. Non-adopters showed preference for face-to-face extension over the Mchikumbe 212 platform citing absence of instant feedback as the main reason for non-adoption. Further, very little was done to promote the platform by the Ministry of Agriculture and Airtel Malawi. As a result, farmers did not associate Mchikumbe 212 platform with the government extension system. This is one of the factors that have negatively affected its adoption.