Impacts of Mobile Phone Use on Poverty Reduction for Non-Commercial Farmers in Rural North Ghana

Abstract

This paper presents findings from an investigation of the poverty-reduction impacts of mobile phone use by subsistence farmers in the Kaleo Traditional Area (KTA) in rural north Ghana. The mobile phone can benefit poor people engaged in commercial activities in developing countries, yet it remains unknown whether the mobile phone affords poverty-reduction impacts on livelihoods where commercial activity is secondary to self sustenance. Our findings suggest that comparative advantages exist for phone-owning farmers in the KTA. However, phoneless farmers who ‘free-ride’ on their phone-owning neighbours also accrue gains. Hence, Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) can benefit not only phone-owners with poverty-reduction impacts, but encouragingly (albeit, more subtly), phoneless farmers.