Problems and Prospect of Folk Media Usage for Agricultural Extension Service Delivery in Benue State, Nigeria

Abstract

The study investigated the problems and prospect of folk media usage for agricultural extension service delivery in Benue State. A total of 100 respondents were selected using a simple random sampling technique. The collected data were analyzed using percentage, frequency and mean. The result of the analysis showed that the types of folk media used in descending order of their usefulness were folk songs, friends,/Association, folk puppet theatre and drama. While the most frequently used folk media were folk dance, folk songs, friends/Association, and groups/ Association. The result further indicated that the three most frequently mentioned problems associated with folk media usage were lack of fidelity, costly to organize and poor clarity. It was therefore recommended that policy makers and practitioners choose appropriate folk media for use considering the level of usefulness and frequency of use. Secondly in order to surmount the problem of lack of fidelity farmers should be involved in the packaging of messages and respected members of the community selected as actors to deliver the messages. Also frequently used and useful folk media which are relevant and cost effective could be used to reduce cost of organizing folk media usage. Also solo singers could be used instead of dance groups to reduce cost. Finally, development agencies and practitioners could adopt folk media usage for agricultural information dissemination because it has great prospect in Benue State.