MASS MEDIA SUPPORT TO AGRICULTURAL EXTENSION

About the Project

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 2/3^rd of the population depend on agriculture and 1/4^th 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;

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.
Repeat broadcasts at different time slots to suit the viewer’s convenience of different segments of population.
Disseminate programmes in regional languages and local dialects for the specific needs of different regions.
Promote live programming with phone-in feature, so that the viewers may interact and participate in the on going broadcasts.
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

To orient the programme producers on the potential use of mass media for strengthening the Agricultural Extension Services in the Country.
To Create awareness and knowledge among the participants about the emerging issues in the field of agriculture and allied sectors.
To develop knowledge and skills in the content creation, treatment and delivery of the farmer related programmes.
To develop the Back-At-Work Plans.

The following are the objectives of review workshop

To review the programmes produced and telecasted/broadcasted by the participants.
To sensitize the participants about the strengths and weaknesses of the programmes produced.
To orient the participants on the improvements required to make the programmes more effective.
To prepare the Back-at-work plans.

Project Team

Shri. B. Srinivas, IAS

Director General

Dr. G. Jaya

Deputy Director (HRD)

Ph: 040-24016702-709, Extn. 253

MANAGE HOME | MASS MEDIA HOME