Interaction of extension worker with farmers and role of radio and television as sources of information in technology transfer: a case study of four villages of district Peshawar and Charsadda.

摘要

Agricultural extension services and electronic media play an important role in the adoption of new agricultural technologies. Extension worker is an important link between research organizations and farmers. Field surveys carried out during 2004 in district Peshawar and Charsada (Pakistan) revealed that unfortunately the services of extension workers were not very impressive. Majority (85%) of the farmers was unaware of the services of the extension workers. Almost 88% of the farmers did not get any benefit from extension workers, while only 12% farmers got some benefits like technical advice (8.75%), demonstration (3.75%) and equipment (10%). Majority (82.5%) of the farmers did not visit the local Agriculture Extension office and only 12.5% of the farmers reported visits of extension worker to their fields, majority of which was big and influential farmers. Only 5% farmers were visited once a year, 8.75% at monthly and 3.75% at weekly basis. Radio and TV are expected to play an important role in technology transfer. Radio sets were owned by 83.75% of the sampled farmers who listened to agricultural programmes and TV sets were owned by 82.5% of the sampled farmers who benefited from its programmes. Out of the total respondents who listened to radio or watched TV, 73.75% got new information about different agricultural problems and their solution from different programmes. Another 50% of the respondents were interested in weather forecast and 37.5% wanted to know the daily prices of agriculture commodities. For illiterate farmers, radio was the only source of information about market prices as it is easy for them to know actual prices in the local or national markets.