EFFECTIVENESS OF KHETKHAMAR PROGRAM OF LOKOBETAR FOR DISSEMINATING FARM INFORMATION

Abstract

Khetkhamar program of Lokobetar (a community radio) may help in disseminating farm information quickly to the listener farmers. This research aimed to investigate the effectiveness of Lokobetar for disseminating farm information as perceived by the listener farmers; determine the item-wise effectiveness of Lokobetar for disseminating farm information; to determine some selected socio-economic characteristics of the Lokobetar listener farmers; explore the contribution of the selected characteristics of the listener farmers to their perceived effectiveness of Lokobetar and determine the severities problems faced by the listener farmers for getting agricultural information through Lokobetar including suggestions to minimize the problems. Data were collected from randomly selected 110 listener farmers of ‘Lokobetar’ from ‘Sadar’ upazila of Barguna district. Findings reveled that majority (60.9%) of the respondent listener farmers’ perceived moderate effectiveness of Khetkhamar (agricultural) programs of Lokobetar and rest 39.1% of them perceived high effectiveness of Khetkhamar programs of Lokobetar for disseminating farm information. Based on descending order of Standardized Effectiveness Index (SEI), ‘timeliness of broadcasting informat ion’ ranked 1 st followed by ‘adequacy of agricultural informat ion’, ‘reliability of agricultural information’ and ‘usabilit y of agricultural informat ion’. Stepwise mult iple regression analysis showed that ‘time spend in farming’, ‘attitude towards Lokobetar, ‘education’ of the Lokobetar listening farmers had positive contribution to their perceived effectiveness of Lokobetar for disseminating farm information. Based on descending order of Standardized Problem Faced Index (SPFI), “lack of radio for listening” ranked 1 st followed by, “weakness of network/signal”, “limited time for broadcasting” , “lack of feed-back facility after listening”, “lack of suitabilit y broadcast ing time”, “lack of usabilit y of informat ion”, “lack of reliabilit y of informat ion”, “inadequacy of informat ion” and “obscurit y of voice’. Based on these findings, it may be said that agricultural programs containing adequate, reliable and usable information on innovations should be broadcasted at suitable time. Effectiveness of Lokobetar for disseminating farm information among all categories of farmers should be increased by supplying radio to the listener farmers’ club, strengthening network and signal capacit y of the radios, increasing broadcasting time of agricultural program and increasing feedback facility with the listener farmers.