Effectiveness of social media agricultural information on farmer’s knowledge

Abstract

The agriculture research and extension institutes are a major source of agricultural information and they are making full use of all information dissemination methods to bridge the information gap among farmers. Social media platforms are dominating agricultural information dissemination platforms in field level. The present study was conducted to assess the effect of agricultural information disseminated through social media on farmer’s knowledge level. The Ex-post facto research design was adopted for the study with a sample of 120 respondents, covering all three erstwhile districts form the Southern Telangana Zone of Telangana state. majority of the respondents had low (75.20%) level of knowledge on agricultural technologies followed by medium (26.67%) and high (0.83%) before intervention to social media. after intervention to social media the respondents had low (51.70%) level of knowledge on agriculture technologies followed medium (42.50%) and high (5.80%). It was found that significant difference existed between the extent of knowledge of respondents before and after use of social media (Z value 8.76). The variables digital literacy, social media usage, information processing, mode of access and preference, and social media participation found to be positive and significant relation with knowledge levels on agriculture technologies at one per cent level of significance. Further variables farm size, social media network and readiness to accept information found to positive and significant at five per cent level of significance.