Assessment of Rice Farmers’ and Extension Agents’ Perceptions on the Use of Radio in Dissemination of Agricultural Information in Zamfara State, Nigeria

Abstract

Background: The absence of a functional agricultural information delivery system is a major constraint in the development of agriculture in Nigeria. Radio is identified by experts to be the most appropriate for rural emancipation programs, because it beats distances, and thus has immediate effect. Objectives:  This study assessed the perceptions of rice farmers and extension agents on the use of radio in the dissemination of agricultural information in Zamfara state. Methods: The research uses a structured questionnaire for data collection. Multi-stage, simple random and purposive sampling techniques were used to arrive at a sample size of 350 farm respondents. Descriptive statistics and a five-point Likert scale were used. Also, the hypothesis was tested using a Spearman’s correlation co-efficient. Results: The major perception of rice farmers and extension agents was that radio serves as a panacea in closing the information gap in the study area with a mean of 2.80 and 2.94 respectively. The Correlation Coefficient (r) of 0.97. indicated that, there is a significant Correlation between rice farmers and that of extension agents’ perceptions on the use of radio in the dissemination of agricultural information in the study area. Conclusion: The research findings were able to identify some constraints such as non-possession of A radio set by rice farmers and their limited time to listen to most of the radio programmes. Therefore, there is the need to integrate extension service with agricultural radio programmes

Keywords: Assessment, Perceptions, Radio, Rice Farmers Extension Agents