TECHNOLOGICAL CAPABILITIES OF EXTENSION PERSONNEL IN THE USE OF SOCIAL MEDIA FOR AGRICULTURAL SERVICE DELIVERY IN SOUTHEAST, NIGERIA

Abstract

The study assessed the technological capabilities of extension personnel in the use of social media for agricultural service delivery in Southeast, Nigeria. One hundred and eighty-nine agricultural extension professionals constituted the population for the study. Data was analyzed using percentages, charts and mean scores. Results show that 97.4% of the agricultural extension professionals indicated that they use whatsapp for agricultural extension service delivery while 93.2% of the respondents indicated that they use facebook for service delivery. Data show that 95.3% of the respondents indicated that they use social media in linking with their colleagues. Entries show that 93.2% of the respondents indicated that they linked with Agricultural Development Programme (ADP) while 92.6% of the extension professionals linked with farmers group. Result show that 84.2% of the respondents had linkage with the ministry of agriculture. Also, 60.5% of the respondents interacted with the ministry of agriculture between 1-10 times while 54.2% of the respondents interacted with the ADP between 5-10 times in the last one year. Government should therefore ensure improved job satisfaction for agricultural extension professionals possibly by increasing their remuneration and providing logistics that would help them to keep in touch with other institutions for latest research results for the interest of the farmers.