Factors constraining the use of mobile phone technologies for accessing agricultural marketing information by grape smallholder farmers in Tanzania.

This article investigates factors constraining the use of mobile phones among grape smallholder farmers in Tanzania’s Dodoma region for accessing agricultural marketing information. Using a descriptive cross-sectional design with 400 respondents, the study found that while most farmers owned feature phones and used mobile phones primarily to access price and buyer information, their effective use was limited by illiteracy, high costs, inadequate skills, and lack of training. Ordinal logistic regression analysis confirmed these factors significantly reduced mobile phone usage for marketing purposes, whereas issues like electricity access, network problems, and language barriers were less significant. The study recommends targeted training programs, tariff reforms to reduce costs, and digital literacy education to enhance mobile phone adoption and use in agricultural marketing among smallholder farmers.