ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Sustain. Food Syst.
Sec. Land, Livelihoods and Food Security
The Role of Information and Communication Technologies in Enhancing Farmers' Access to Extension Services: Evidence from Ingquza Hill Local Municipality
Provisionally accepted
- 1University of South Africa, Department of Agriculture and Animal Health, Florida Campus,, Johannesburg, South Africa
- 2Boldpanda Pty Ltd, Department of Sales and Market Research, Johannesburg, South Africa
- 3Department of Rural Development and Agrarian Reform, Lusikisiki College of Education, R61,, Lusikisiki, South Africa
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
This study investigates the role of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) in improving smallholder farmers' access to agricultural extension services in Ingquza Hill Local Municipality, Eastern Cape, South Africa. A descriptive survey design was adopted, using structured questionnaires to collect data from 104 smallholder farmers. Participants were selected through a combination of convenience and random sampling to ensure representativeness. The findings reveal that 64.7% of farmers were women, with the majority (20.2%) aged 26–30 years. ICT adoption was high, with 75% using digital tools for farming and 65.5% relying on mobile phones as their primary source of extension information. WhatsApp (44.1%) and Facebook (44.1%) were the most commonlycommon platforms used platforms to obtain advisory services. However, barriers such as poor internet connectivity (39.4%), high data costs (38.5%), and limited digital literacy (18.3%) hindered full utilization. The study concludes that ICTs, particularly mobile-based and social media tools, play a crucial role in bridging information gaps and improving access to agricultural extension services. It recommends targeted investments in rural ICT infrastructure, digital literacy programmes, and multi-stakeholder partnerships to strengthen digitally enabled agricultural transformation in Ingquza Hill Local Municipality.
Keywords: Information and communication technologies, Agricultural extension, access toinformation, Smallholder farmers, Digital agriculture, Rural Development, Ingquza hill, SouthAfricaDigital agriculture
Received: 13 Sep 2025; Accepted: 29 Oct 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Khwidzhilli, Ijatuyi and Diko. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Rendani Humphrey Khwidzhilli, khwidrh@unisa.ac.za
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.