Mass Media Exposure of Organic Paddy Farmers of Haryana

Media is regarded as the fourth estate of democracy by the scholars. Media have a social responsibility of promoting agriculture which is the backbone of economy. In India, considerable progress has been achieved in the field of agriculture in the post-independence era. But, there are limited opportunities for the development of organic farming due to constraints, pressures and compulsions, liberalization of economy and commercialization of agriculture. The agricultural universities, technical institutions, organic farmers ’associations and non-government organizations have explored new possibilities of promoting organic farming in the country and making it economically viable through consistent research and development activities. The main objectives of this study were to identify the preferences of mass media by the organic paddy farmers in receiving agricultural information and to explore the relationship between characteristics of the farmers and mass media exposure. The findings revealed that 48.67 percent, 36.67 percent and 14.67 percent of the respondents had medium, low and high mass media exposure, respectively. Television was found to have more uses followed by newspaper, magazine, kisan call centre, workshop/training, radio and internet respectively by the farmers. The findings revealed that education, land holding, innovativeness, cosmopoliteness and knowledge had significant positive relationship with the mass media exposure.