Just 0.95% Ghanaian Farmers have telephone lines

Less than one percent of farmers in Ghana have access to fixed telephone lines, a recent report has stated.

Of a total number of 2,503,006 farm houses counted under the survey, only 23,729 were found to have fixed telephone lines.

A National Analytical Report on the 2010 Population & Housing Census launched in Accra by the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS), which revealed this, said the lowest proportion of farmers with fixed telephone lines were found in the Northern, Upper East and Upper West regions with 6.2, 4.3 and 1.5 percent respectively.

The highest proportion of farm houses with fixed telephone lines were found in the Ashanti Region with a record of 20.7 percent followed by the Eastern Region with 160 percent and the Greater Accra Region with 14.0 percent.

The report also said out of the 2,503,006 recorded, only 54,360 farm houses used internet facilities.

“One such initiative is TradeNet, an organization that links farmers and traders through the provision of the information on the product type, quantity and price via mobile networks in market across African (TradeNet, 2007)”, it said.

It stated that the low usage of internet facilities in rural areas in the country particular point to the digital divide between Ghana and the rest of the world, as well as internal rural urban divide.

“In countries such as Tanzania, Kenya and Uganda, programmes are in places to enable farmers use mobile phones to access relevant agricultural information, such as, availability and prices of improved technologies, marketing outlet and prices for farm produce,” it said.

Government and private organizations have therefore been asked to set up internet centers in public places such as libraries and community centers, particularly in the three northern regions and rural areas to help bridge the digital divide.