Due to inadequate personnel, information communication technologies (ICTs) have become an attractive option for delivery of extension information. This study examined awareness and use of ICTs by farmers in Oyo State, Nigeria. A total of 192 farmers were interviewed. Results indicate that most farmers had no formal education and small farm holdings. Awareness of older ICTs like radio and television was more prevalent among farmers as compared with newer ICTs such as Internet and cable television. However, use of modern ICTs like mobile phones and cable television was greater than that for older technologies such as fax machines.Farmers were constrained in ICT use by prohibitive cost and service failure. The Nigerian government should encourage a liberal policy for affordable prices for modern ICT products, especially mobile telephones.

This study focused on the use of combined media to minimize the time lag for both awareness and adoption of best practices for food crop production in Oyo State, Nigeria. One hundred and eighteen registered farmers in the Iddo District were sampled and interviewed. Results showed that the majority of the farmers were male (83.9%) and married (67.8%), and about one third (27.1%) completed elementary education. Fellow farmers (76.3%), extension agents (63.3%), friends (49.2%), and radio (48.3%) readily served as information sources for farmers. The quantum of agricultural information to which farmers had access was significantly related to varieties of information sources (r = .26, p = .05) used by farmers. The empowerment of elite farmers and capacity strengthening for extension agents are advocated for improved agricultural information dissemination.

The

The study examined farmers

The media, especially the newspapers play a major role as sources of biotechnology information and will be useful avenues for disseminating related information. It is in view of this that this study examined coverage of biotechnology and Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) in Nigerian daily newspapers as an avenue to raise mass awareness especially amongst literate farmers. This study content analysed 63 GMOs and biotechnology items framed in four Nigerian newspapers (the Guardian, Punch, Vanguard and Nigerian Tribune). The time frame was from January 1, 2005 to December 31, 2010 being the period that marked the sudden rise in public awareness of biotechnology issues occasioned by coverage of biotechnology related news in Nigerian media. Variables measured include types of news, frequency of news coverage, placement, direction and space allotted to biotechnology news and related stories. Data were analysed using both descriptive (frequencies, percentages) and inferential (ANOVA) statistics at p≤0.05. Results indicate that across the four newspapers, types of biotechnology news reported were mostly food safety news (54.0%) in 2005 (21 items) with highest news items from Tribune (49.0%). Though most news items (87.3%) on GMOs and biotechnology were positively framed, all (100%) news items were not strategically placed as they were in other pages of all the newspapers. Space allocated to biotechnology news was higher in the Punch (469cm 2) than Guardian (423 cm 2), Tribune (378 cm 2) and Vanguard (252 cm 2). There were significant difference across the newspapers in direction (F= 1.23, p ≤ 0.05) and space allotted (F = 2.53, p ≤ 0.05) to coverage of biotechnological news. Generally, there is low reportage of biotechnology and GMOs news for the period investigated, across newspapers, in space allotment and strategic locations; it is therefore recommended that more attention and priority should be accorded biotechnology news items in terms of space and strategic placement to enhance public awareness of related information.

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Entertainment-Education (EE) seeks to purposefully use entertainment media to educate targets about development intervention. Though, an innovative communication approach for addressing development related issues, its use and potentials for dissemination and adoption of agricultural technology has not been fully harnessed. The study was conducted to compare the perception of researchers, extension agents and farmers in southwestern Nigeria on the use of EE for agricultural information dissemination. One hundred and sixty one respondents were sampled using multistage sampling procedure. Data were collected using questionnaire and analysed using descriptive and inferential statistics. Majority (72.1%) of the researchers had a high perception of the use of EE. More than half (54.7%) of the extension agents and about two-thirds (61.1%) of farmers had a low perception towards the use of EE strategy. However, there was an overall high perception of EE by 50.3% of the total respondents. Researchers, extension agents and farmers differed (F = 5.779; P < 0.05) in their perception of the use of EE for agricultural information dissemination. The overall favourable perception of use of EE for agricultural technology dissemination implies that if conscious efforts are made it offers a potent medium for agricultural information dissemination.

Given the soap opera’s potential to engender behaviour learning and meet the information needs of farmers, this paper sought to establish farmers’ propensity to use soap opera for sourcing agricultural information in Southwest Nigeria. A multi-stage sampling procedure was used to draw representative samples (150 farmers) in this study. Using interview schedule, data were elicited on farmers’ personal characteristics, awareness about the use of soap opera, perceived benefits of soap opera and proclivity to use it for sourcing agricultural information. Data were analysed using descriptive (frequencies, percentages, means) and inferential (Chi-square and PPMC) statistics at P = 0.05. Farmers’ age, years of schooling and household size were 52.1 ± 11.4 years, 10.5 ± 4.6 years and 5.9 ± 2.4 persons, respectively. Majority of the farmers (86.0%) had heard about soap opera and 76.0% heard of different soaps in the last couple of years and more than half (53.3%) had heard of different soaps from both radio and television. However, 90.7% did not know any kind of soap opera that was used to promote agriculture. More than half of the farmers (56.7%) had high inclination for sourcing agricultural information using soap opera. There was a significant correlation between farmers’ perceived benefits (r = 0.36; P = 0.00) and proclivity to use soap opera for sourcing agricultural information. Farmers’ positive proclivity to use soap implies that soap opera strategy has potentials to benefit farmers as a source of agricultural information; therefore, soap opera should be considered as veritable avenue for agricultural information dissemination in Southwest Nigeria.