Use of Communication Media by the Farmers in Practising Rice-Cum-Fish Culture

The purposes of the study were to have an understanding on the extent of use of communication media by the farmers in practising Rice-Cum-Fish culture and to determine the relationships between the selected characteristics of farmers with their extent of use of communication media. Data were collected from 90 randomly selected farmers (out of 120) from two villages under Melandah Upazila of Jamalpur district. A pre-tested and structured interview schedule was used to collect data from the farmers during 20 February to 19 March, 2010. Pearson’s Product Moment Correlation Coefficient (r) was used to explore relationships between the concerned variables. The most commonly used communication media by the farmers were Sub-Assistant Agriculture Officer (SAAO), neighbours, visiting agricultural fair, another member of the family, television, relatives, Upazila Fisheries Officer (UFO), poster, friends, leaflets, Upazila Agriculture Officer (UAO), daily newspaper, result demonstration, Local Extension Agent for Fisheries (LEAF), farmers field school, radio, magazine, field day, local leader, group discussion. The scores of extent of communication media were ranged from l4 to 25 with an average of 9.40. The proportion of the farmers having low and medium use of communication media were 91.11 and 8.89%, respectively. Correlation analysis indicated that education, farm size, annual income, organizational participation, cosmopoliteness, training exposure, and knowledge on Rice-Cum-Fish culture of the farmers had significant positive relationships with their extent of use of communication media. Thus, it is concluded that farmers need more exposure to commercial media to receive need-based information for better practising of Rice-cum-Fish culture.