A study on communication behaviour of agricultural input users of Udham Singh Nagar district of Uttrakhand, India

Abstract

This research aims to study the communication behaviour of the agricultural input users or farmers in order to find the deficiencies in this field with expectation to highlight the sources of information preferred and extent of extension agency contacts in the areas. Based on this, a strategy can be worked out to disseminate effective agricultural information to the farmers. The communication behavior in this study includes four variables i.e. mass media exposure, extension contacts, source of information and information satisfaction, covering both overt and covert behavioural components. This study was conducted at Udham Singh Nagar district of Uttrakhand state, where two villages namely; Chhinki and Deoria were selected randomly and from these villages, the data were collected with the help of semi structured interview schedule from randomly selected 160 respondents. The findings revealed that the most preferred (61.25%) personal localite communication sources for seeking information regarding agricultural practices were their neighbours or family members followed by local agricultural inputs sellers (13.75%). From personal cosmopolite sources, 51.87 % respondents were preferred to the representatives of the private companies followed by the agricultural university staffs (40%). The majority of respondents (83.75 %) were not associated with any membership in their social system followed by membership (16.25%). It has been reported that even after the sixty six years of independence farmers are still traditionalists, hardliners, shy and ignorant about the agricultural and overall development of the country.