Comparative profile of communication behaviour of potato growers in Meghalaya

Communication behaviour of farmers can be defined as the extent to which they expose themselves to various information sources both for receiving as well as passing on the information to others. It is also essential to know how farmers get farm information from extension personnel and researchers, what sources they use for gelling information. how they evaluate the received technology and after getting information, to what extent the 1;lI'Incr act upon. Understanding a cross-section of the fanners in !heir various groups or categories with respect to their communication behaviour is a fundamental prerequisite to rapid transfer of technology. The problem related to communication behaviour/pattern of farmer can be grouped under three categories, individual communication pattern, intra communication pattern and inter communication pattern. In this study individual communication behaviour was taken as information input behaviour, information processing behavior and information output behaviour. The present study was conducted in East Khasi Hills district of Meghalaya during the year 2009–10 and was purposively selected. Total 125 respondents (potato growers) were finally selected by simple random sampling. The results of investigation revealed that variables like education, annual income, extension contact, mass media exposure, risk preference, innovation proneness and sources of information were significantly correlated with the communication behavior. Further on regression analysis, it was found that the variables like education and innovation proneness had significant influence over communication behaviour and therefore, were important predictors for any variation in extent communication behaviour.