Perception and Preferences of Farmers for Agricultural Telecasts in Namakkal district of Tamil Nadu

Agriculture is the major occupation and only source of livelihood for majority of the small and marginal farmers in India. To enhance knowledge of the farmers, Government and extension agencies used communication tools like television. The television programmes with agriculture related content were specially designed for the farmers and were telecasted. This study assesses the perception and preferences of famers about agricultural programmes telecast through television (TV). A random sample of 40 farmers from Namakkal district was selected for the study and the data were gathered through pre-tested interview schedule. This study implied that 55 per cent of farmers preferred to watch agricultural programme which had significantly impact on farmers’ knowledge about overall farming practices. In order to make the agriculture sector economically viable, special efforts should be taken by government and extension agencies to develop more farming related programmes to transfer the recent technologies and to solve the farmer queries.