Assessment of Communication Strategies of Fadama User Groups in Ido Local Government Area of Oyo State, Nigeria

Abstract

The success or otherwise of any development project partly depend on the effectiveness of communication strategies used in such project. The study assessed the communication strategies utilised by Fadama User Groups (FUGs) for fadama programme. Structured questionnaire was used to collect data from 120 members of the Fadama User Groups randomly selected from 10 villages in Ido Local Government which was purposively selected based on the preponderance of Fadama User Groups in the Local Government. The data collected were subjected to descriptive (percentage and frequency ) and inferential (Chi square).Result shows that majority of respondents were male (75.0%), married (95.0%) between the age of  36-40 ( 30.8%) with 66.6% having household size of 1-3 persons and ( 75.0% ) had access to extension services. Majority preferred group discussion (66.7%) and radio (62.5%) as medium of communication. Larger percentage of the respondents (69.2 %) had high access to different communication strategies   in the study area. Language barrier   ( =2.00) and irregular power supply ( =1.50) were the major constraints against effective utilisation of communication strategies used by members of Fadama User Groups. Significant relationship existed between occupation (x2=14.106, p=0.001) and communication strategies of Fadama User Groups in the study area.  It is recommended that members of FUG should be encouraged on the need to sustain the use of different communication strategies to enable them get timely information on modern system of farming.