Role of Farm-Radio Agricultural Programmes in Disseminating Agricultural Technology to Rural Famers for Agricultural Development in Zaria, Kaduna State, Nigeria

Abstract

The study was carried out to examine the role of radio agricultural programmes on awareness creation among farmers in the study area. The study districts were purposively selected for their known potentiality of agricultural production and a convenient sampling was employed to get a total of ninety farmers for the study, a structured questionnaire was used as an instrument for data collection. Descriptive and inferential statistics were used to analyze the data obtained. The finding of the research reveals that majorities (90%) of the farmers were males, within their active productive ages (31-42 years) and 50% of them had attained Islamic education. Most of the farmers obtained agricultural information through radio agricultural programmes (97.8%) out of which majority had access to information through the format of presentation or discussion by an expert and or the extension workers (77.8%). The finding also revealed that farmers adopted the information disseminated through radio, which was found to be highly relevant (32.2%) to the farmers’ agricultural activities. Farmers gained the knowledge of agricultural management practices (26.7%), prevention of post harvest losses (17.8%) and appropriate application of fertilizer (16.7%), and which was found to be very important and effective to majority (97.8%) of the farmer′s agricultural activities. The chi-square analysis depicts that there is significant relationship between the type of radio agricultural programmes aired and the knowledge gained by the farmers (X2=94.2, P< 0.03). It is recommended that there is need for improvement on agricultural information programmes to farmers through radio and rural agricultural radio stations should be established in the villages to disseminate and to teach farmers improved agricultural practices.