Farmers Utilization of Farm - Radio Programmed for Marketing of Agricultural Commodities in Oyo State, Nigeria

Abstract

Radio can persuade and effectively influence large audience, thereby contributing substantially to the building of national consensus. It is a powerful instrument in the area of public enlightenment, on health issues, family planning, cultural reawakening, and marketing of agricultural products, business improvement and other social issues. The study examined the used of radio for the marketing of agricultural products in Oyo State, Nigeria. A random sampling technique was used to select one hundred and fifty (150) farmers for the study. The results of the findings showed that majority of the respondents (66.7%) were women with most of them between 41-50years of age. Majority of the respondents were married (67.3%) and educated (72.0%), which has positive effect on their use of marketing information. Farming constitutes the major occupation (81.3%) of the respondents, with many of them (68.0%) having between 6-15years farming experience. The result further shows that majority of the farmers (84.0%) used the radio agricultural programme as their agricultural market information source. Inferential statistics results indicate that there were significant relationship between farmers use of farm-radio programme for marketing agricultural commodities and educational attainment (X² = 16.35; < 0.05) and primary occupation (X² = 61.25; < 0.05). However age (X² = 5.54; > 0.05) and marital status (X² = 10.46; > 0.05) among other variables had no significant relationship with the use of farm-radio programme for marketing agricultural commodities. Also the results on farmers awareness (r = 0.632, p < 0.05) and use of farm-radio for marketing agricultural commodities had a positive relationship while constraints (r = -0.0256, p < 0.05) had a negative relationship with farmers use of farm-radio for marketing agricultural commodities. The study concluded that apart from radio, the mostly widely use source of market information by farmers are extension agents and verbal contact with fellow farmers.

Keywords: Radio, Marketing, Utilization, Farmers, Agricultural, Commodities.