Content uploaded by Fahmida Choudhury
Author content
All content in this area was uploaded by Fahmida Choudhury on Feb 03, 2020
Content may be subject to copyright.
Attitude of Farmers towards Television Programmes in Perceiving
Agricultural Information
F.H. Choudhury1, M.R. Amin2, M.A. Islam3 and S.D. Baishakhy4
Abstract
In this communication explosion era different agricultural programmes broadcasted
through mass media like television plays an effective role to disseminate
information at the right time to the right community. This information
dissemination helps to increase the possibility of farmers in receiving modern
technological information through these programmes. The present study was
conducted to measure the attitude of the farmers towards agriculture related TV
programmes in perceiving agricultural information. The objective of the study was
to evaluate farmer’s socio-economic status, their attitude towards agricultural TV
shows and to explore the relationship between socioeconomic characteristics and
attitude towards agriculture related TV programmes. The study was conducted in
South Surma upazila of Sylhet district in Bangladesh. Data were collected through
interviewing randomly selected 100 of television viewing farmer by using
structured interview schedule. Attitude of the respondents towards was measured by
using five point Likert scale consisting of twelve agriculture related statements. To
explore the relationship between the concerned variables correlation coefficient (r)
was computed. Results reviewed that, Majority of the respondents (76%) had
medium favorable attitude while 14% have low favorable attitude towards
agricultural TV shows. In addition to that, among the seven socio-economic
characteristics of the farmers their level of education, farm size, farming
experience, annual income and agricultural knowledge showed positive significant
relationship towards agricultural TV programmes in perceiving agricultural
information, whereas age and family size had negative significant relationship.
Therefore, the number of agricultural TV shows with more relevant information
should be made to boost up the attitude of farmers towards it.
Keywords: Attitude, Television, Farm programmes, Television viewing farmers
Introduction
Transferring new findings and technologies
to rural farmers remain a promising strategy
for increasing agricultural productivity in an
agricultural country like Bangladesh. The
new idea must reach farmers' farms and
homes through effective extension methods
such as mass media, so that they can adopt
new technologies and put them into use
(Ekoja, 2003).Today television has emerged
as the best medium of mass communication
to disseminate farm information to millions
of farmers. Earlier studies (Lwoga, 2010;
Hassan et al., 2009) revealed that in rural
areas mostly farmers still depend on
television, newspaper and radio regarding
the information about agriculture. They also
added that Print and electronic media still is
the main source of getting agriculture
information among the farmers in the rural
areas. In the dissemination and adoption of
new ideas, Television (TV) plays an
important role, especially regarding
Bangladesh Journal of Extension Education ISSN 1011-3916
Volume 31, No. 1&2, 2019: 171-176 Research Article
1&4Lecturer, 2&3Professor, Department of Agricultural Extension, Sylhet Agricultural University,
Sylhet
Bangladesh Journal of Extension Education
172
awareness and interest of their adopters
(Kashem, 1992). It seems that the main
reason for the popularity of television lies in
its simplicity for the audiences. Since
people intend to choose the easiest way for
learning, the simplest way can be found in
television educational programs (Buren,
2000). Ekoja (2003) stated that radio,
television, propagation publication, daily
farm newspapers, agriculture exhibitions,
practical education, and consultation
services, are the key information source of
about different agricultural topics to the
farmers. Television is becoming an
important and popular medium through
which the information of modern
technology can be spread easily and quickly
to all level of farmers. It is getting so
effective mass media as it help farmers to
see different agricultural practices visually
as well as they can hear how to do it. As a
result farmers get inspiration of trying those
practices at farm level. In past days,
Bangladesh Television was only the main
channel but in recent days a number of
programmes are telecasting in various
satellite channels, such as Mati-O-Manush
(BTV), Krishi Diba-Nishi (BTV); Shayamol
Bangla (Bangla Vision); Hridoya Mati-O-
Manush (Channel I), Hridoya Mati O
Manusher Dak (Channel I), Krishi o
Jibon(Boishakhi Television), Shobuj Bangla
(Gazi TV). The mentioned programmes are
very popular among farmers for
disseminating farming related technologies.
Attitude of individual plays an important
role in determining ones behavior and
adoption of technologies. The favorable
attitude would help to adopt new innovation
and increase agricultural production.
Keeping all these facts in mind the present
investigation has been undertaken with
following specific objectives:
• To assess the attitude level of farmers
towards agriculture related television
programmes.
• To explore the relationship between the
selected socioeconomic characteristics
of the farmers with their attitude
towards agriculture related television
programmes.
Methodology
South Surma upazila of Sylhet district was
selected purposively as the locale of the
study. The study encompassed three
villages of South Surma Upazila such as
Tirashigram, Shirajpur and Konarchor.
These villages were selected for the study as
these villages had proper dish facilities. The
total numbers of the television viewing
farmers in the selected three villages were
400. Twenty five percent (25%) of the
farmers were selected as the sample
following proportionately random sampling
method. Thus, 100 farmers were selected as
sample of the study. Data were collected
from the sampled farmers using an
interview schedule following personal
interview method.
Seven selected characteristics of the
respondent, e.g., age, Level of education,
Family size, Farm size, Farming experience,
annual family income, agricultural
knowledge were considered as independent
variables, while attitude of farmers towards
TV programmes for perceiving agricultural
information was the dependent variable of
the study. For measuring the attitude
towards agriculture related TV programmes,
a Likert type scale containing 12 statements
(6 positive and 6 negative) was used. These
statements included the predisposition of
farmers towards improved technology in
Attitude of Farmers towards Television Programmes in Perceiving Agricultural Information
173
agriculture. The statements were selected
after thorough consultation with the relevant
experts. A 5-point modified Likert-type
scale was used to measure the extent of
agreement. By checking any one of the
responses such as strongly agree, agree,
neutral, disagree and strongly disagree, the
respondent indicated his/her extent of
agreement. Weights were assigned to the
responses were 4, 3, 2, 1 and 0, respectively
for positive statement and the scoring
system was reversed for the negative
statements. The attitude score of a
respondent was determined by adding up
the weights for all the responses against all
the 12 statements. Attitude score of a
respondent could thus range from 0 to 48,
while 0 indicated very unfavorable and 48
indicated highly favorable attitude towards
agriculture related TV programmes.
Results and Discussion
Characteristics profile of the TV viewing
farmers
Profile of different characteristics of the TV
viewing farmers is presented in Table 1.
From the table it is found that, the highest
portion of the respondents (68%) was
medium aged while largest (53%) portion of
them had secondary level education. Again,
highest (73%) portion of the farmers had
medium sized family with medium annual
family income (74%). In addition to that,
majority (71%) of the farmers had medium
farm size with medium level of agricultural
knowledge (67%) and farming experience
(69%).
Attitude of the respondents
The overall attitude scores of the
respondents towards agricultural TV
programmes ranged from 16 to 48 with
mean and standard deviation are 33.67 and
6.80, respectively (Table 2). Attitude of the
farmers shows that majority of the
respondents (76%) had medium favorable
attitude towards agriculture related TV
programmes, (14%) had low and (10%) had
highly favorable attitude respectively. It
depends largely on the knowledge and
awareness of the farmers. The information
of the table revealed that a good number
(86%) of the farmers possesses medium to
highly favorable attitude towards
agricultural TV programmes may influence
the farmers in improving their
understanding of the information they
receive through various agricultural TV
programmes. This finding is supported by
khatun (2007) who also reveal that a good
number (83%) of the farmers possesses
moderate to highly favorable attitude
towards agricultural TV programmes may
influence the farmers in improving their
understanding of the information they
receive through various agricultural TV
programmes. Again, Kumar et al. (2017)
observed that 56.66 percent of farmers was
having favourable attitude, 16.66% farmers
had highly favorable and 26.66% of farmers
show least favourable attitude towards farm
radio programme. This finding is supported
by Chahal (1992) and Shareef-Ud-Din
(1994). Furthermore Raghuprasad et.al
(2012) found that more than two-fifth
(40.83%) of the farmers had favorable
attitude towards ICT tools in farm
communications.
Bangladesh Journal of Extension Education
174
Table 1 Characteristics profile of the TV viewing farmers
Characteristics
Categories
%
Respondents
Mean
Standard
Deviation
Age
Young( up to 32)
17
Middle age (33-52)
68
42.37
10.22
Old (above 52)
15
Educational
Qualification
Illiterate (0)
6
Primary level (1-5)
41
5.77
3.28
Secondary level (6-10)
53
Family Size
Small(2-4)
14
Medium (5-10)
73
7.26
2.98
Large (above 11)
13
Farm Size
Small (0.21-0.70)
13
Medium (0.71-2.37)
71
1.53
0.84
Large (above 2.38)
16
Farming
Experience
Low experience(3-5)
12
Medium experience (6-19)
69
12.38
7.14
High experience
(20years and above )
19
Annual Family
Income
Low (Up to 69)
11
Medium (70-257)
74
163.63
94.32
High (above 258
15
Agricultural
Knowledge
Low (Up to 18)
12
Medium (19-25)
67
22
3.49
High (above 25)
21
Table 2 Distribution of TV viewing farmers depending on their attitude towards agriculture
related TV programmes
Category (Score)
Frequency
Percent
Mean
Standard
Deviation
Low favorable attitude (16-26)
14
14
33.67
6.80
Medium favorable attitude (27-40)
76
76
High favorable attitude (41-48)
10
10
Total
100
100
Relationship between the selected
characteristics of TV viewing farmers
with their attitude towards agricultural
television programmes
Farmers’ attitude towards TV programmes
in perceiving agricultural information found
moderately effective. All the seven socio
economic criteria are significantly co-
related with farmer’s attitude towards
agricultural TV shows for perceiving
information. Among them age and family
size acts negatively significant with outlook
of farmers. Generally age old person are not
so attracted with TV viewing as youths do.
Another thing is that they elderly farmers
considered information comes through TV
Attitude of Farmers towards Television Programmes in Perceiving Agricultural Information
175
Table 3 Relationship between the selected
characteristics of the respondents
with their attitude towards
agricultural TV programmes
Selected Characteistics
TV programmes
Correlation( r) with
perceived
information by
Age
Educational Qualification
Family size
Farm size
Farming experience
Annual family income
Agricultural knowledge
-.354**
.206*
-.225*
.335**
.391**
.252*
.356**
is not so effective to perceive information
(Khatun 2007). Study reveals that, family
size showed negatively role with attitude of
farmers towards agriculture related TV
programmes. It may be said that while
family size increased their income
decreased as a result they may not afford
TV. This may create negative attitude
towards TV. On the contrary level of
education, farm size, farming experience,
annual family income and agricultural
knowledge played positively significant
relationship with attitude towards
agriculture related TV shows in perceiving
information. According to Raghuprasad et
al. (2012) education, land holding or farm
size and annual family income showed
positively significant relationship with
attitude of farmers toward ICT tools in farm
communication.
Conclusion
Majority of the farmers showed positive
attitude toward agriculture related
Television programmes. Level of education,
farm size, farming experience, annual
family income and agricultural knowledge
played positively significant relationship
with attitude towards agricultural TV shows
while age and family size showed
negatively significant relationship.
Therefore, policy makers should consider
these variables while taking the policy to
make the mass media effective in
agricultural development arena.
References
Buren, E.D. 2000. Cultural Aspects of
communication for development.
Translator: Falsafi, S. Tehran. IRIB
Press. Iran, pp. 110-114.
Chahal, V.P. 1992. Comparative study of
radio and TV utilization in transfer of
farm technology. Ph.D. Thesis,
Chaudhary Charan Singh Haryana
Agricultural University, Hisar
Ekoja, I. 2003. Farmer’s access to
agricultural information in Nigeria.
Bulletin of the American Society for
Information Science and Technology.
29(6): 21- 23.
Hassan, M.S., Shaffril, M., Azril, H. and
J.L. D’Silva. 2009. Problems and
obstacles in using information and
communication technology (ICT)
among Malaysian agro-based
entrepreneurs. European Journal of
Scientific Research, 36 (1), 93-101.
Kashem, M.A. 1992. Sampresaran Biggan.
Dhaka: Bangladesh Packing Press.
. 2007 Effectiveness of agriculture related
television programmes for
Bangladesh Journal of Extension Education
176
dissemination of agricultural
information to the farmers. MS thesis.
Sher-E-Bangla Agricultural
University.
Kumar, M., Ansari, M.N. and A.K. Singh.
2017. Attitude of Radio Listeners
Towards Farm Broadcast
Programmes. International Journal
of Science, Environment and
Technology, 6(2): 1485 – 1490.
Lwoga, E.T. 2010. Bridging the agricultural
knowledge and information divide:
The case of Selected Telecenters and
rural radio in Tanzania. The electronic
Jounal of Information System in
Developing Countries, 43: 1-14.
Raghuprasad, K.P., Devaraja, S.C. and
Y.M. Gopala. 2012. Attitude of
Farmers towards Utilization of
Information Communication
Technology (ICT) Tools in Farm
Communication. Research Journal of
Agricultural Sciences, September,
3(5): 1035-1037.
Shareef-Ud-Din. 1994. “Listening behavior
and attitude of radio-owning farmers
towards farm broadcasts”. M.Sc.
Thesis Chaudhary Charan Singh
Haryana Agricultural University,
Hisar.
