EFFECTIVENESS OF KRISHI RADIO FOR DISSEMINATING FARM INFORMATION

Abstract

As a community radio, Krishi radio helps in disseminating agricultural information quickly to the listener farmers. This research aimed to: i) investigate effectiveness of Krishi radio for disseminating farm information as perceived by the listeners farmers; ii) to determine some selected socio-economic characteristics of the Krishi radio listener farmers; iii) to explore the contribution of the selected characteristics of the listener farmers to their perceived effectiveness of Krishi radio and iv) to determine the problems faced by the listener farmers to get agricultural information from krishi radio with the suggestions to minimize the problems. Data were collected from randomly selected 106 listener farmers of ‘Krishi Radio’ from Barguna sadar and Amtoli upazilla of Barguna district. Findings reveled that majority (77.4%) of the respondent listener farmers perceived moderate effectiveness of agricultural program of Krishi radio and rest 22.6% of them perceived high effectiveness of agricultural programs of Krishi radio for disseminating agricultural information. Based on descending order of Standardized Effective Index (SEI), ‘timeliness of broadcasting information’ ranked 1 st followed by ‘adequacy of agricultural information’, ‘reliability of agricultural information’ and ‘usability of agricultural information. Stepwise multiple regression analysis showed that ‘time spend in farming’, ‘attitude towards agricultural radio program’, and ‘education’ of the Krishi radio listening farmers had positive contribution to their perceived effectiveness of Krishi radio for disseminating agricultural information. Based on descending order of Standardized Problem Faced Index (SPFI), ‘lack of radio for listening’ ranked 1 st followed by, ‘limited broadcasting time of agricultural program’ ‘weakness of network/signal’ and ‘lack of feedback facility after hearing’. Based on these findings, it may be said that agricultural programs containing usable, reliable and adequate information on innovations should be broadcasted at suitable time by supplying radio to the listener farmers’ club, strengthening of network and signal capacity of the radios, increasing broadcasting time of agricultural program and increasing feedback facility with the listener farmers for increasing effectiveness of Krishi radio for disseminating farm information among all categories of farmers.