Media and its Role in Agricultural Technology Transfer: the case of Dendi and Ejere weredas, Oromia, Ethiopia

Abstract

Agricultural extension organizations are entrusted with this primary task for which they use a variety of extension teaching methods/media. Among the mass media means of communication, radio is found to be the most important means of communicating agricultural information to the rural farmers. The study was conducted in Ethiopia, Oromia region west shoa zone two weredas of Dendi and Ejere . All the farmers living in the rural union councils of the district were considered as research population of the study. Multistage random sampling technique was used to draw the sample. The list regarding the rural union councils and villages of the district was obtained from office of the District Officer Agriculture (Ext.).From each of the two weredas, three peasant associations (PA) were selected randomly. From each of the selected villages, 30 farmers were selected at random. The sample comprised 180 respondents. Analysis was done by using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS), interpreted and discussed to draw conclusions. According to the result indicated, the mean value of age of farmers was 38 .Regarding family sizes; the average family size is 5. The average formal education level is grade 5. Majority of them (93.9%) have radio and they follow agricultural programs in Amharic language. Moreover, there are farmers following agricultural information in Radio of Oromifa language (96.7%). There was a great variation of followers in Fana broadcasting corporation (FBC) of Amharic and Oromifa 74 .4 and 95.6 percent respectively. The future intention for getting Agricultural information indicates improving mean value in each case as compared to the present use of electronic media. Concerning the preference for obtaining Agricultural information in future, Mobil was at the top (score=274) with mean value 3.86 indicating medium level of preference. Radio (223) acquired the 2nd position with mean value 3.54 showing preference levels between low and medium but tended more towards medium. 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 to this, cell phone coverage is very important for farmers to farmers information exchange purposes.