Agricultural extension services play a key role in improving the livelihoods of farming communities through the provision of expert assistance, disseminating of information and technologies; as well as helping to translate scientific research into practice. Unfortunately, agricultural extension services in Uganda and in many parts of the developing world are constrained by an array of challenges which include: (1) too few extension workers compared to the number of farmers; (2) a huge disconnect between research, extension and farmers; (3) and the language used in agricultural research and technical bulletins is often in the country’s official language, which can be a foreign language such as English which farmers cannot read. Uganda’s massive mobile phone revolution offers the promise of bridging the gap between available agricultural information and farmers but many information and communications technology (ICT) projects that have been implemented have not been adopted for a variety of reasons. This study uses a combination of praxical and theoretical approaches to identify factors that affect the adoption and diffusion of ICT for agriculture and other communication systems. To accomplish this, “Buuza Omulimisa” – a mobile-based information system was developed and assessed using a pretest-posttest research design. While offering information in farmers’ own languages was the most important factor that spurred system use; lack of familiarity with text messaging was the most significant barrier to its use. Language did not only have a significant impact on ease of use but also on the system’s usefulness. Results also show that cost, education, age and gender play a significant role in the adoption or rejection of a system.
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