An Empirical Examination of the Effectiveness and challenges of Information Dissemination to Rural Farmers

Regardless of the emergence of novel technologies in this digital ecosystem, rural farmers in most developing nations of the world do not always find information with ease. This entails that there is still that need for professionals to assist such farmers in finding the information they need. This study takes a look at the effectiveness of the various channels used in disseminating information to rural farmers and challenges faced with Ebonyi State, Nigeria rural farmers as case in point. It adopted descriptive survey design with a sampled population of 1300 rural farmers selected through purposive random sampling techniques and drawn from 13 local governed areas in Ebonyi State, with the aid of the state comprehensive database of all co-operative societies and commercial farmers in the state as created by the government to help in the planning of agricultural programmes with each local government area having 100 respondents. The principle instrument used for data collection is a self-designed four point scale structured questionnaire. Data collected were analyzed using frequency percentages and mean scores while the analyzed data were displayed in tables. The outcome of the study revealed among other thing that the use of town criers, traditional institutions like tradition rulers and chiefs, Radio broadcast, farmers multipurpose cooperative Societies, flyers/posters/brochures and Inter and intra personal communication among farmers are highly effective in delivery information services to the rural farmers. It also found that lack of vehicles and digital communication equipment, language barrier, high illiteracy level of most rural farmers and inadequate financial support for farmers’ cooperative societies among others are major challenges hindering effective information dissemination/delivery to the rural farmers. The study recommended inter-alia that the government should see it as a responsibility, partnering with other concerned bodies and institutions to train rural farmers to be literate so that they can optimally utilize various information delivery sources effectively with a view to enhancing their productivity which will in turn, help in the realization UN SDGs number two which is on zero hunger as to have enough to take to the market for sale.