MASS MEDIA AND ITS ROLE IN AGRICULTURAL TECHNOLOGY TRANSFER: THE CASE OF DENDI AND EJERE WEREDAS, OROMIA, ETHIOPIA

Abstract

Abstract

Agricultural extension organizations are entrusted with a primary task of utilization of mass media for disseminating agricultural technology to farmers. Among the mass Medias, radio is found to be the most important means of communicating agricultural information to rural inhabitants. All farmers belonging to the rural union councils of Dendi and Ejere weredas were considered for the study. Multistage random sampling technique was used to draw a sample. The list regarding the rural union councils and villages of the district was obtained from the District Officer of Agriculture. Three peasant associations (PA) were randomly selected from each of the weredas and 30 farmers were also randomly selected from each PA which comprised a total of 180 respondents. Analysis was done by using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS). According to the findings the mean value of age of farmers was 38 with an average family size of 5. On average, formal education level was grade 5. Majority of farmers (93.9%) own radio set and they tend to follow agricultural programs in Amharic and Oromifa languages. Preferences of farmers for obtaining agricultural information in the future, mobile telephone was ranking at the top (score=274) with mean value 3.86, while Radio (223) attained the 2nd position with mean value of 3.54. Therefore expanding the ownership of radio to large population plays a vital role in dissemination of improved agricultural technologies in the study area. In addition, cell phone coverage is very important to farmers for communication of information related to agricultural technology transfer and marketing of products.