Assessing the Availability, Accessibility and Use of Media Channels for Sourcing Agricultural Information by Urban and Rural Farmers in Kogi State, Nigeria

Abstract

The study assessed the availability, accessibility, and use of mass media among urban and rural farmers in Kogi State, Nigeria. A three staged random sampling technique was used to select 320 urban and rural farmers for the study. Data for the study were collected through well structured questionnaire and subsequently analyzed with descriptive statistics and sigma scoring. The findings revealed that availability of television in the urban areas was 98% while in the rural areas it was 86.13%. 31.88% had access to television in the urban while 27.50% had its access.  For radio, the availability was 98.13% in the urban and 98.12% in the rural while its access was 59.38% and 65% in the urban and rural areas respectively. The high level of availability and low level of accessibility of some of this mass media among urban and rural farmers could be attributed to factors such as high cost of purchase, illiteracy, time, low income level of the farmers among others. Sensitization and establishment of communication centres especially in rural areas were recommended.