Abstract
This study was carried out to find out farmers' perceptions on the role of mass media in sustainable agricultural development in Omala Local Government Area of Kogi State. Three specific purposes guided the study while three research questions were answered. The study adopted descriptive survey design. The population of the study is 1226, which consist of 702 registered farmers and 524 extension agents of the state ministry of agriculture in the Omala Local Government of Kogi State while purposive sampling techniques was used to select a sample of 90 registered farmers and 10 extension agents as respondents for the study. The instrument used for data collection was a thirty-nine items structured questionnaire. The questionnaire used was validated by three experts in the agricultural education department University of Nigeria Nsukka. The reliability of the instrument was established using Cronbach Alpha method which yielded a coefficient of 0.82. Data was collected through direct contact with the respondents; and analyzed using mean and standard deviation to answer the research questions. The findings of the study revealed that mass media plays an important role in disseminating agricultural information to farmers. Also, sources of information used by extension agents to communicate to farmers include: radio, television, newspaper among others. The study concluded that mass media plays an important role in disseminating agricultural information to farmers. The study recommended that the individual farmers should be encouraged to join agricultural cooperative societies for easy access to information despite the other means of information dissemination to farmers.
Keywords: sustainable agricultural development, Mass media and Farmers' perception
Publication Date: 2024-12-08