Utility of the news papers as base line communicator for the dissemination of the modern rice integrated pest management (ipm) methodologies to the farmers

In the district of Uttar Dinajpur, West Bengal limited success of integrated pest management (IPM) programme in paddy is basically due to the poor educational status of the farmers, low imminent outlook to the suggested crop management schedule and finally their meager attitude to adopt any new suggestion relating to better management packages. The role of news papers to disseminate agricultural knowledge among the farmers for adopting better crop management packages is thus required to be assessed. Depending on the habit of reading of agricultural related information in news papers 390 selected farmers in the block Raiganj of the district Uttar Dinajpur were broadly categorized into two groups such as contact farmers-CF (read news papers 3–4 hours a day) and non contact farmers-NCF (no habit of news paper reading). Depending on the age of the farmers each group was again sub divided into six sub groups (3 sub groups for CF + 3 sub groups for NCF), viz CF-A and NCF-A (18–27 years), CF-B and NCF-B (28–37 years) and CF-C and NCF-C (38–47 years). Each sub group comprised of 65 heads. They responded variably when they were allowed to assess the actual infestation level of two major insect pests (yellow stem borer and gall midge) in the paddy field at late growth stage. Grossly, CF responded more accurately to the actual level of pest infestation. Among the contact group more accuracy was noted for the famers belonging to CF-C sub group. Responses of NCF group differed considerably and significantly from the actual value. Reading of agriculture related news was thus found indispensible for proper field management.