Role of Farm Telecast in Dissemination of Livestock information in the era of ICT

Television has emerged as the best mass communication medium in disseminating agriculture and related information to remote area in no time and help to bridge the gap between the scientists and farmers. With many possibilities, the scope of the study extends to examining the role of television in dissemination of Animal Husbandry information with objective to arrive at the opinions and suggestions of farmers regarding farm telecast programmes. The research work was taken up with a sample size of 120 livestock farmers from three corners of Chittoor district, Andhra Pradesh by administering a structured schedule to the respondents and the results were analysed with standared statistical tools. Majority of the farmers had medium level of televiewing behaviour (78.3%) and opined that the duration of telecast (100%), time of telecast (91.66%), repetition of the programmes (79.16%), local information coverage (31.67%) and regularity of the programmes (29.16%) should be increased to attract the views of farmers towards television. Majority of the farmers preferred Demonstration by scientists (35%) followed by phone-in-live sessions (26.6%), straight talk by scientists (19.2%) and inclusion of success stories (19.2%). Further majority of the farmers viewed the farm telecast programmes two to three times in a week (38.3%) followed by once in a week (30.8%), daily (18.3%) and once in a fortnight (12.5%). Coming to the livestock farmers suggestions majority of the farmers suggested that the time (100%) and duration (96.67%) of telecast programmes should be changed, Schedule of the telecast programmes may be intimated well in advance (95.83%) and some preferred for a separate television channel (96.67%). Considering the above opinions and suggestions of farmers the television will turn out to be a better media in information dissemination in the new era of Information Communication Technology (ICT).