THE ROLE OF MOBILE PHONE IN ACCESSING FISH MARKET INFORMATION IN ABOLE WOREDA, GAMBELLA PEOPLE’S REGIONAL STATE, ETHIOPIA

Abstract

Information flow has increased impact on perishable agricultural products by enabling the timely sharing and usage of information to make decisions. This is because firstly, they will be spoiled if not used timely. Secondly, prices of perishable products are highly dependent on freshness at the time of exchange. Fish production and timely marketing is important for its consumption that could be done at its fresh state. In this regard, lack of timely market information leads to fish spoilage, fish price inflation as they cannot meet their customers timely. Assessing use of mobile phone specific to the study area was the problem that the research tried to fill. This study was intended to assess the use of mobile phone in accessing fish market information, to analyze determinants of mobile phone use in accessing fish market information and to identify challenges faced and available opportunities in using mobile phone in fish markets in Abole Woreda, Gambella People’s Regional State, Ethiopia. Abole woreda was selected purposively for the study for its fish resource potential. A total of 120 respondents (proportionally 36 and 84 from Baro river and ponds, respectively) were used for the study. The samples were selected randomly using lottery method. Questionnaire, key informants interview and observation were used to collect data for the study. Descriptive statistics mainly frequency and percentage and binary logistic regression model were used for analyzing the data. Qualitative data were narrated, summarized and presented and used to supplement the results from the quantitative data. Among the 120 respondents,75.0 % were mobile phone users while the other 25.0 % were mobile phone non-users. Contingency coefficient and variance inflation factor were used to check multicollinearity problems among the independent variables. Majority of the respondents were males and majority, 90 (75.0 %) of them were mobile phone users while the remaining 30 (25.0 %) were mobile phone non-users. Six of the independent variables namely education level, access to credit, distance from fishing place, membership in collective marketing groups, number of customers and accessibility of fishing tools were found to be significant in influencing mobile phone use in accessing fish market information. The fish production potential in the area,the high demand of fish and cheap price of Simcard with 15 birr free air time were some of the opportunities to use mobile phone by the fishermen. On the other hand, language and skills problem to use mobile phone, interruption of electric power,interruption of network were some of the challenges for fishermen to use mobile phone. Providing education opportunities in the area including adult education, provision of financial and material support, solving electric power and network problems, organizing fishermen in formal groupsis important. Providing fishermen with the necessary support including awareness creation trainings and practical demonstrations, providing fishing tools and using the fish resource potential in the area is very important. It could be accomplished by the coordination of the district fishing production office, electric power corporation and Ethiotelecom among others