Assessment of mass media performance in agricultural information dissemination to rural farmers in Girei Local Government Area of Adamawa State, Nigeria

Abstract

This study assessed mass media performance in agricultural information dissemination to rural farmers in
Girei Local Government Area of Adamawa State, Nigeria. The specific objectives of the study were to:
identify the socio-economic characteristics of the respondents; examine the languages used by mass media
stations in broadcasting agricultural programmes; assess the performance of mass media in agricultural
information dissemination; identify the respondents’ preferred languages for receiving agricultural
information; and, identify the factors militating against mass media performance. Multistage random
sampling procedure was employed in the selection of 115 farmer respondents and purposive sampling
technique was used to select one respondent from each of the five mass media involved in the study.
Descriptive statistics (frequencies, percentages and means) and the Likert-type rating style (a 5-point rating
scale) were employed in the analyses of the data generated. The major findings indicate that the
performance of Radio Gotel (RG) was the only one rated as good. The performances of the rest of the mass
media were all rated as bad, with the exception of the Adamawa Broadcasting Corporation, the performance
of which was rated as very bad. The most preferred languages identified for receiving agricultural
information are Hausa and English as indicated by 47% and 30% of the respondents respectively. Some of
the major problems identified are adequate funding for agricultural programmes; erratic or sometimes lack
of electricity supply. It was concluded that limited number of days for which agricultural programmes are
being featured and the languages (English and Hausa) used in the dissemination of agricultural information
were insufficient, and this translates to low agricultural productivity. The major recommendations made
were: mass media stations should also broadcast agricultural information in native or indigenous languages
of the respondents. The number of days for which agricultural information is disseminated per week should
be increased to at least a minimum of three days per week by all the mass media stations studied. Extension
workers should create awareness on the use of computer to promote computer literacy. Government needs
to improve power supply to enable the mass media to perform effectively. Farmers should imbibe the use of
the Global System for Mobile communications (GSM) in accessing farm information.