Potentials of indigenous communication media for agricultural information dissemination in south-western Nigeria

This study was carried out to assess the potentials of indigenous communication media in disseminating agricultural information in South-Western Nigeria. A multi stage random sampling technique was employed to select 120 respondents from 24 villages drawn at equal proportions from the two selected states within the southwestern geopolitical zone of Nigeria. Data were collected with the aid of an interview schedule. Descriptive statistics was used to analyse and categorize personal and socio-economic characteristics of the respondents, while 5 points-like rating scale was used to evaluate the respondents’ perception of indigenous communication media, and Chi-square was used to evaluate the significant relationship between socio-economic characteristics of respondents and their perception of indigenous communication media effectiveness. The result revealed that the mostly used indigenous media is town crier (60.0%), followed by traditional music (18.3%), folk songs (12.5%) and drama (9.2%). Also, 19.2% of respondents believed that indigenous media was cheaper than other media, 25.0% believed it was energy saving, 39.2% believed it gives prompt feedback, while 16.7% believed it was timely. Reasons for not using indigenous media often as indicated by the respondents were modernization (63.4%) and lack of interest (36.6%). Most of the respondents perceived that indigenous media were effective in disseminating agricultural information, simple to understand and effective in introducing new innovations, but that it was geographically restricted. Chi-square analysis showed a significant relationship between age (χ2 = 50.500, p = 0.006), marital status (χ2 = 39.025, p = 0.000), educational qualification (χ2 = 13.900, p = 0.001), primary occupation (χ2 = 20.197, p = 0.001), religion (χ2 = 20.278, p = 0.000), sex (χ2 = 41.200, p = 0.0001) and perception of the respondents.   Key words:  Indigenous communication, agricultural information, dissemination media.