An overview of social media use in agricultural extension service delivery

Abstract

Social media are contemporary digital communication means comprising various tools that allow interaction among people and information exchange worldwide. Its active users have reached around 3 billion globally as at April, 2017. Since agricultural extension service delivery is primarily a communication process, proper integration of social media is necessary. However, owing to the conducted researches so far the present paper was centred on making an overview of the current perspective of social media and agricultural extension service delivery. Evidences obtained revealed that there are many social media platforms being used in agricultural extension service delivery worldwide with Facebook having highest popularity (64.7%). Most of the agricultural stakeholders using social media are versatile users (33.5%) who usually visit only to find information (75.7%). Many challenges are currently faced in using social media for agricultural extension service delivery; viz. illiteracy, shortage of infrastructure, limited participation, non-institutionalisation, lack of quality control, lack of adequate yardstick for measuring impact and need for gender sensitive approach. In general, social media is gradually appreciated in agricultural extension service delivery, but faced with challenges. Thus, the necessity to put structures in place and required efforts by all stakeholders to ensure good use of its benefits.

Social media user’s knowledge on soil plant relationship in Saudi Arabia

“…In the context of Saudi Arabia, AL-Sakran et al (2017) found that the participants in their study depend on WhatsApp, Youtube , and Twitter respectively and all these platforms were ranked higher than Facebook on the degree of reliance. Unlike results from this study and AL-Sakran et al (2017) , results of different studies in other countries such as USA, Serbia, India and Bangladesh found that professionals and workers in agricultural sector are dependent on Facebook as the primary platform to share and get information related to agriculture ( Elmer et al, 2016 , Ćirić et al, 2018 ; ( Mamgain et al, 2020 ); Barau and Afrad, 2017 ). Lubell and McRoberts (2018) found that Facebook, Twitter and Instagram are among top five social media platforms used to disseminate information related to agriculture.…”

“…Regardless the degree extent and scale of the utilization of a particular platform, Bhattacharjee and Raj (2016) concluded that ICTs are valuable assets that have potentials to engage clients of agricultural extension and help to outreach rural communities. Barau and Afrad (2017) indicated that using social media in agricultural extension services enables stakeholders to deliver, interact, and share agricultural knowledge on various topics on farming and issues that facing farming communities. They concluded that social media platforms are becoming popular in terms of agricultural knowledge, which shows users’ need and desire for valuable and trusted agricultural information.…”

“…However, using social media as tools for agricultural information delivery may have some issues in content structure, information quality, stakeholders’ participation and transformation of knowledge ( Barau and Afrad, 2017 ). Understanding users’ perspective helps to develop and provide reliable and engaging agricultural content on social media platforms.…”

Information Sources and Constraints to Climate Change Adaptation amongst Smallholder Farmers in Amathole District Municipality, Eastern Cape Province, South Africa

“…The internet is a modern-day technology that provides a platform for information access and interaction [123] and is packed with several applications like social media [124]. Barau and Afrad [125] (p. 50) defined social media as "a contemporary channel of digital communication that is composed of various evolving tools for discussion, interaction and sharing of information among people." It allows for information sharing, participatory and collaborative interactions among groups of users [126].…”

Young Farmers’ Cooperation Behavior and the Role of Social Media in Developing Agribusiness

“…In Kerala, Sudhakar (2018) stated that the e-commerce portal help farmers to market their products and Whatsapp and Facebook is also becoming the media for regular e-extension. Barau and Afrad (2017) mentioned Facebook as the most popular social media used to deliver the extension. Youtube has also become a favourite social media platform for farmers to gather information about agribusiness, particularly applications (Balkrishna andDeshmukh, 2017 andThakur andChander, 2018).…”