About the Project
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The public extension programs
being state subject, are struggling to survive due to financial
constraints and therefore have been not able to effectively carry out
extension activities. A
situation has thus arisen where the need for providing quality extension
service to the farmers is the greatest while these services have
shrunken to almost non-existent level.
The private extension services, though effective have not been
able to cover the complete spectrum of agricultural
activities.
They have been predominately limited to certain high value corps
in resource endowed areas confined to progressive farmers. The small and
economically weak farmers are not yet able to pay for the services
offered by private entrepreneurs. At the same time, in a
country like India where 2/3rd of the population depend on
agriculture and 1/4th of country’s GDP is contributed by
agriculture, it is very upsetting to note the coverage of agriculture in
media including print and electronic which is even less than 2 percent. Driven by the facts of poor extension services
and apathy of media for agriculture, the Ministry of Agriculture, Govt.
of India has taken a bold initiative to use Mass Media in Agriculture
Extension. Now
with far reaching changes in the communication technology and break
through in space technology, remote sensing, satellite broadcasting and
the media revolution, Ministry of Agriculture, Govt. of India has
decided to use Mass Media for Agricultural Extension to augment the gaps
in the extension services, in collaboration with Prasara Bharathi and
IGNOU. Centrally sponsored scheme on Mass Media Support to
Agriculture Extension, a bold initiative by Ministry of Agriculture,
Govt. of India is already under implementation. The primary objective of
the scheme is to use television and radio with their massive penetration
as a vehicle that could be exploited for the purpose of
extension. The scheme “Mass Media support to Agriculture Extension”
aims to fulfill the following specific objectives; 1.
Broadcasting programmes covering a wide spectrum of topics
in the agriculture and allied fields to cover the entire country, with
special focus on isolated areas and marginalized population. 2.
Repeat broadcasts at different time slots to suit the
viewer’s convenience of different segments of population. 3.
Disseminate programmes in regional languages and local
dialects for the specific needs of different regions. 4.
Promote live programming with phone-in feature, so that the
viewers may interact and participate in the on going broadcasts. 5.
Undertake capacity building and training programmes to help
upgrade the knowledge and expertise of programme executives, extension
workers, field-level officials and other functionaries. MANAGE has been assigned with the responsibility of
undertaking the fifth objective of capacity building and training
programmes to help upgrade the knowledge and expertise of programme
executives, extension workers, field-level officials and other
functionaries. The responsible includes the capacity building of the
personnel involved in electronic media, TV and Radio both to
create, treat and deliver relevant programs on agriculture for farming
community. The main objective is “to train Senior and Middle level
Officers from State Agriculture, Animal Husbandry, Horticulture,
Fisheries Departments, Scientists from ICAR / University System and
other district level implementation functionaries from TV and Radio,
including District Information Officer as identified by the State
Governments and Collectors in the use of Media Skills necessary for TV
and Radio in content creation, treatment and delivery for farmers
related programs”.
B. Progress of activities under this project so far is
given as below: As
part of the project activities, the following orientation-training
programs were organized to LPT and FM Radio station functionaries at
MANAGE with a structure
include inputs on agriculture and allied areas, developing strategy for
script writing and story broad preparation, screening of the films /
programs already produced by the program producers of LPT and FM Radio,
Production of the films / programs on the selected themes during the
training programs. After completion of these orientation program,
the program producers expected to use the training inputs and produce
the films in their local language and telecast / broadcast the same at
their respective regional kendras.
After
a gap of two months of training, five days Review Workshops were
organized to the trained producers to evaluate their utilization of
knowledge and skill in production of the programs relevant to the
farmers’ needs The following are the
objectives of orientation
program
The following are the objectives
of review workshop
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