A study on media preferences of organic vegetables growers of Hilly district Reasi of Jammu and Kashmir, India

Presently Indian extension system is under tremendous pressures where the extension workers have to cater not only vast population but also to perform administrative, elections, input supply and many other assignments. Under these circumstances, it is not practically possible to serve all the farmers, all the time for all the problems when ratio of extension worker and farmer, the sender and receiver is more than 1:1000. Therefore, the potential of mass media can be exploited to serve the rural population in this direction. Information has an immense importance in our society. Its large scale dissemination through highly preferred communication media constitutes one of the most striking developments of present era. Organic vegetables production has an immense scope in hilly areas of Union Territory of J&K. In order to increase the organic vegetables production in hilly areas, it is necessary that the organic vegetables growers of hilly areas should adopt the scientific organic farming technologies. In order to know the media preferences of organic vegetables growers residing in hilly areas, the present study was conducted in hilly district Reasi of Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir which was selected purposively. A sample of 120 KVK trained organic vegetables growers was selected randomly. A list of different sources of organic farming information was prepared and respondents were asked to indicate their preferences on a three point scale. It was found that Extension Personnel of KVK and Extension Personnel of Agriculture Department were highly preferred by the respondents followed by the progressive vegetables growers of the area.