Use of Mobile Phone By Farmers and Its Implication On Farmer’ Marketing Capacity in Lattakia, Syria

BcA. George Bchara, BSc

Master's thesis

Abstract:

The use of mobile phones in development and reduce the poverty has more attention in the last decade. There are many farmers involved in market information searching in the developing country, but the number of farmers who uses the mobile phone to obtain the information is very low. The reason for that is lack of official sources and the credibility for the information. Limited access to the information leads to wrong decisions and poor planning by farmers, which had affected farmer revenue and environmental degradation. This research considers the importance of market information system in Syria as a complementary tool for the post-war reconstruction in order to take advantage of mobile phones to improve the income of the farmers. Therefore, this thesis aimed to analyse and identify the impact of mobile phones use on the farmer’ marketing capacity and the importance of marketing information systems in supporting farmers' decision to marketing their products. In addition, we identified what type of agricultural information is requested by the farmers to improve their income. The research combined the analysis of primary data gathering through a questionnaire survey among 140 farmers in the Lattakia region in August 2019. The value-chain analysis and benefit distribution among farmers were also documented. The results showed that gender of the respondents in Lattakia region does not have any effect on the farmers selling price for their production. While the level of education has a high effect on the selling price and helps farmers to get a higher selling price than those who do not have enough education which in turn leads to having a positive impact on their income. The results of this research indicate that farmers who receive market information have the advantage to make the right decision and selling their products at a higher price, which lead to improving their income.The mobile phone would be an important tool to eliminate the intermediary from the value chain and increase the value share of the farmer.

Keywords

Information system, Mobile phone, Syria

Language used: English

Date on which the thesis was submitted / produced: 13. 5. 2020

Thesis defence

• Supervisor: Ing. Petra Chaloupková, Ph.D. dr. h. c.

Czech University of Life Sciences Prague

Faculty of Tropical AgriSciences

Master programme / field:
Tropical Agriculture / International Development and Agricultural Economics