Analysis of social media mainstreaming in E-extension by agricultural development programmes in North Central Zone, Nigeria

Abstract

Social media is a new trend in communication and a new platform for sharing, engagement and networking in all spheres of life including agriculture. This study analysed social media mainstreaming in e-extension services delivery by the Agricultural Development Programmes (ADPs) in North CentralZone of Nigeria. Four ADPs of Kogi, Federal Capital Territory, Nasarawa and Niger states that participated in the Research Extension Farmer Input Linkage (REFIL) activities in November 2017 were purposively selected and used for the study. Secondary data were generated from the REFIL reports and descriptively analysed. Result established insufficient field extension agents to effectively reach out to1.412 million farm families in the zone. Also, the result reveals zero exclusion of social media such as Facebook, WhatsApp, Chats, YouTube and Mobile phone tools in the ADPs communication strategies. ADPs communication targets dwelled more on old media such as radio (21%) and television (50%) were costly and achieved low projected targets. Mainstreaming social media in e-extension will be more effective to reach out to farm families and overcome observed field manpower shortage problems. Modern networking tools and proactive creative measures such as Facebook, WhatsApp, YouTube, Chat, mobile phone tools of short message sending and voice call are recommended for inclusion in their communication strategies. In this regard, REFIL organisers and Federal Department of Extension should facilitate ADPs innovativeness and staff training on social media to improve competence and skills of actors in the agricultural value chain providers in extension delivery to the agribusiness community.

Rural Development System in Nigeria and the Veering Locus from China’s Successful Strategies

“…In an attempt to enhance and ensure attainment of developed agriculture in the country were integration of support services such as Agricultural Development Programs (ADP) and River-Basin Development Authority (RBDA) nationwide. The ADP, developed in 1975, was adopted to provide extension service delivery to the farmers, drawing innovative and technical information from the research outputs to guide the farmers on technicalities of farm practices [39,40]. In view of this, a network of research-extension-farmer-input linkage systems was put in place to ensure that research; extension, and input service delivery are readily available to the farmers for improved productivity.…”

Harnessing the use of alternative media for South Africa’s agricultural extension service delivery in the face of the covid-19 global pandemic

“…This situation is not uncommon in many countries. For example, India and Nigeria are also faced with similar constraints ( Bhattacharyya et al, 2018;Ifejika et al, 2019). Asides from this, many other issues associated with the F2FEM include untimely dissemination of information, geographical distances, poor roads and transportation services, and lack of proper communication infrastructure (Abdullahi, Shehu & Sani, 2016;Sani et al, 2018).…”

Social Media Used by Arable Crop Farmers for Communicating Climate Change Adaptation Strategies in Imo State, Nigeria

“…The social media used mainly by the respondents have a rich share of visual display in communication. Ifejika, Asadu, Enibe, Ifejika, &Sule, (2019) pointed out that as at July 2017 the global social media login users was 2 billion people for Facebook, 1.5 billion for Youtube and 1.2 billion for Whatsapp and Facebook messenger. Twitter recorded 328 million monthly users in the globe, the authors pointed out; however, the use of Twitter by the respondents was more, as indicated by the data.…”

“…Social media provides the platform for effective agricultural information dissemination, communicating measures and practices and to utilize opportunities, address challenges facing agricultural sector in developing countries. Social media is important in the dissemination and creation of awareness on agricultural technologies and development knowledge in real time (Ifejika, Asadu, Enibe, Ifejika & Sule, 2019). However, reaching farmers with only traditional extension system is a big challenge and may continue to prove abortive considering the barriers to effective agricultural extension in developing countries which seeks to create opportunities to connect more farm families with extension agents.…”