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Applied Environmental Education & Communication

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Listenership of Radio Agricultural Broadcasts in Southwestern Nigeria

Adekoya Adegbenga Emmanuel & Badiru Idris Olabode
a a a

Department of Agricultural Extension and Rural Development, University of Ibadan, Oyo State, Nigeria Version of record first published: 20 Apr 2013.

To cite this article: Adekoya Adegbenga Emmanuel & Badiru Idris Olabode (2012): Listenership of Radio Agricultural Broadcasts in Southwestern Nigeria, Applied Environmental Education & Communication, 11:3-4, 189-196 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1533015X.2012.777292

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Applied Environmental Education & Communication, 11:189196, 2012 Copyright Taylor & Francis Group, LLC ISSN: 1533-015X print / 1533-0389 online DOI: 10.1080/1533015X.2012.777292

Listenership of Radio Agricultural Broadcasts in Southwestern Nigeria

Adekoya Adegbenga Emmanuel and Badiru Idris Olabode,
Department of Agricultural Extension and Rural Development, University of Ibadan, Oyo State, Nigeria

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Agricultural broadcasts on radio play a major role in agricultural extension and rural development in Nigeria due to the low ratio of extension agents in relation to the farming population. The broadcasts have been on air for some time and therefore there is a need to investigate their acceptance among the rural dwellers in Southwestern Nigeria. Multistage random sampling technique was used to select 450 respondents from three out of the six states that make up Southwestern Nigeria. They were asked to respond to an interview schedule designed for the study. Out of the returned schedules, 438 were found suitable for analyses. Results showed that agricultural broadcasts enjoyed wide listenership (94.1%) among the respondents, many of whom (69.0%) had medium listenership index (64.3%). Rural dwellers educational attainment was signicantly related to listenership of rural development broadcasts ( 2 = 69.619), while there was no signicant relationship between rural dwellers perception (r = 0.080, P > 0.05) of agricultural broadcasts and listenership of agricultural broadcasts. Since agricultural broadcasts enjoyed wide listenership and were found to be potentially benecial to the rural dwellers, they should be sustained, while avenues of improving the programming should be explored.

INTRODUCTION
Agriculture is an important profession in Nigeria. It is in fact the main thrust of its national survival as it provides jobs for about 65% of the population (Windapo & Afolayan,
Address correspondence to Adekoya Adegbenga Emmanuel, Department of Agricultural Extension and Rural Development, University of Ibadan, Oyo State, Nigeria. E-mail: vichenfel2@yahoo.com

2005). Agricultural development and rural development are closely intertwined and any attempt at developing the agricultural sector will have a multiplier effect on a large proportion of the Nigerian population and the rural economy in general. Being a human centered endeavor, agricultural and rural development cannot be sustainably achieved without a strong agricultural extension department. Yahaya and Badiru (2002) hinted of the limited number of extension agents in Nigeria as in many other countries which

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provided a premise for the media to act as complements of the extension arm. Experience has shown that government which is the largest employer of extension agents may not be too willing to continuously employ more extension personnel particularly due to the persistent complaints from government circles that much of the government revenue is spent on staff salaries. This is further complicated by the incessant demand for wage increase by labor leaders to cope with increasing cost of living in Nigeria. This scenario denitely calls for a rethink on the methods of agricultural and rural development information dissemination in the rural areas of Nigeria. Thus, the mass media comes in handy in this respect. Considering the assertion of The ACP-EU Technical Centre for Agricultural and rural Cooperation (CTA, 2006) that in many cases, the radio is the most suitable medium of mass communication for reaching the rural areas along with the assertion of Tabing (2007), that aside from being more popular and readily available to farmers; radio removes geographical and physical barriers and gets messages to the listeners instantly, the choice radio for agricultural information dissemination can be said to be a wise decision. Radio agricultural broadcasts date back to 1963 with broadcasts like Agbe Mase (I will take to farming) on the Western Nigeria Broadcasting Corporation (Ariyo, 1987). Olowu (1993) and Yahaya and Badiru (2002) found that agricultural broadcasts have great potentials for the development of the Nigerian agricultural sector and the rural areas, and that farmers requested for the allocation of more time to such programs. In realization of these potentials, agricultural development programs, in addition to having village extension agents on the eld also run agricultural programs on radio. Prominent among such programs are Boluyo on Lagos FM, Agbe afoko soro on Ogun State Broadcasting Corporation, Ise agbe on Ondo State Radiovision Corporation, and Agbeloba on Broadcasting Corporation of Oyo State. These programs have been on air for a long time and there are

mixed reports on their listenership. Although, many authors such as Patel and Ekpere (1978), Olowu and Igodan (1989), and Yahaya and Badiru (2002) reported a high listenership status of these programs among the rural populace, Ojebode (2008) opined that the patronage of such broadcasts was low. Considering the important role played by these broadcasts in agricultural information dissemination, there is need to document the current listenership status of the broadcasts to ascertain the need for their continuation or otherwise in the present dispensation.

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PURPOSE AND OBJECTIVES

The purpose of this study was to investigate the listenership of agricultural broadcasts on radio in Southwestern Nigeria. The specic objectives of the study were as follows: 1. Assess the listenership of agricultural broadcasts among rural dwellers in the study area. 2. Measure farmers perceptions of agricultural broadcasts in the study area. 3. Examine farmers reasons for listening to agricultural broadcasts. 4. Assess the relationship between rural dwellers personal characteristics and listenership of agricultural broadcasts. 5. Examine the relationship between rural dwellers perceptions of agricultural broadcasts and listenership of the broadcasts.

METHODS
The study was carried out in the Southwest geopolitical zone of Nigeria. A multistage sampling technique was used to select rural dwellers to serve as the third category of respondents for the study. One senatorial district was selected from each of the three selected

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states using a simple random sampling technique to achieve 33.3% sample proportion while one rural local government area was selected from each of the selected senatorial districts using simple random sampling technique. From each local government area, three wards were selected using the simple random sampling technique, while one community was in turn selected from each selected ward using the simple random sampling technique. Fifty respondents were selected from each ward making a total of 450 respondents. However, 438 were found good enough for analyses.

MEASUREMENT OF VARIABLES
Listenership was measured by computing the scores derived from frequency of listening and length of listening to agricultural broadcasts to arrive at agricultural listenership index. Questions relating to the personal characteristics of the rural dwellers were asked while respondents were asked to respond to 16 attitudinal statements on a 5-point scale of 5 (Strongly Agree ), 4 (Agree ), 3 (Undecided ), 2 (Disagree ), and 1 (Strongly Disagree ). Scores will be reversed for negative statements, such that 1 (Strongly Agree ), 2 (Agree ), 3 (Undecided ), 4 (Disagree ), and 5 (Strongly Disagree ) to measure their perception of current radio agricultural broadcasts. Tests of relationships were carried out using chi-square and PPMC.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

Personal Characteristics
The personal characteristics of rural listeners discussed are sex, age, highest educational attainment, and major occupation. Table 1 shows

that many of the respondents (69.6%) were male which may suggest that Nigerias rural areas are male dominated. This agrees with the ofcial population gure which revealed that there are more males than females in the country (Federal Republic of Nigeria Ofcial Gazette, 2007). The mean age of the respondents was 43.99 years. Majority of the respondents were in the productive age of 3160 (81.5%) while 10.5% of the respondents fell within 130 while 8.0% were above the age of 60 years. This nding is in line with the nding of Salimonu (2007) who reported 48.1 as mean ages of farmers respectively in earlier studies conducted in the country. This implies that the study area has a potential agricultural workforce that can contribute meaningfully to the agricultural development of the country. Majority of the respondents (92.2%) had formal education, while only a few (7.8%) had no formal education at all. Gender analysis of the educational status of the respondents, however, showed that more of the males (94.8%) had formal education compared to the females (86.5%). This suggests a high literacy rate and is in agreement with the report of the Nigeria Education Data Survey (2011) which puts the literacy rate in the Southwest geopolitical zone at 79%, and the National Literacy Survey (2010) which puts national adult literacy rate in any language as male79.3% and female63.7%. This implies that the majority of the respondents would be able to read and write, and as a result, well disposed to the adoption of new agricultural technologies that may be disseminated through rural development broadcasts. Similarly, many of the respondents (65.8%) were primarily engaged in farming. This goes to conrm the general belief that agriculture provides employment for the majority of the rural populace. The majority of the respondents (97.9%) own a radio. However, gender analysis shows that more of the males (100%) own a radio as compared to the females (93.2%). This represents fair access to radio across the gender divide.

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Table 1 Distribution of rural dwellers by their personal characteristics Variable Sex Age Category Male Female Total 130 3160 6179 Total Frequency 305 133 438 46 356 36 438 Male Highest educational attainment No formal education Primary Secondary National Diploma National Certicate of Education Higher National Diploma Bachelor of Science or equivalent Post Graduate Diploma Master of Science or equivalent Total Farming Trading Craftsmanship Civil Servant Others Total 16 (5.2) 94 (30.8) 103 (33.8) 38 (12.5) 23 (7.5) 15 (4.9) 13 (4.3) 0 (0.0) 3 (1.0) 305 (100) Female 18 (13.5) 31 (23.3) 64 (48.1) 2 (1.5) 15 (11.3) 0 (0.0) 2 (1.5) 0 (0.0) 1 (0.8) 133 (100) 288 94 14 31 11 438 Female 124 (93.2) 9 (6.8) 133 (100) Total 34 125 167 40 38 15 15 0 4 438 7.8 28.5 38.1 9.1 8.7 3.4 3.4 0 9 100 65.8 21.5 3. 2 7.1 2.5 100 Percentage 69.6 30.4 100 10.5 81.5 8.0 100

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Major occupation

Male Radio ownership Yes No Total 305 (100) 0 (0.0) 305 (100)

Total 429 9 438 97.9 2.1 100

Note. Figures in parenthesis are percentages within column.

Listenership of Agricultural Broadcasts

Table 2a shows that most of the respondents listened to agricultural broadcasts (94.1%). A sizable proportion (45.6%) listened always while an almost similar proportion (44.7%) listened occasionally. Meanwhile, 9.7% rarely listened to agricultural broadcasts. These suggest a wide listenership base for agricultural broadcasts among the rural respondents and implied that any useful message aired on agricultural broadcasts are likely to be well received. This

wide listenership corroborates earlier work by Yahaya and Badiru (2002) which reported a high rate of listenership among rural dwellers in the Southwestern region. Meanwhile, most of the rural dwellers (69%) had medium listenership index, as against 17.1% who had low listenership index and 3.9% who had high listenership index. Gender analysis (Table 2b) however, showed that more males (5.3%) had high listenership index compared to females (1.5%), meanwhile, more of the females had low (18.0%) and medium (80.5%) listenership indices compared to the males (16.7%

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Table 2a Distribution of agricultural broadcasts by listenership and listenership index Listening to agric. broadcasts Yes No Total Frequency of listening Always Occasionally Rarely Never Total

Frequency 412 26 438

Percent 94.1 5 .9 100

Frequency 188 184 40 26 438 75 345 18 438

Percent 42.92 42.01 9.13 5.94 100 17.1 78.8 4. 1 100

Index Low 0 6.00157 Medium 6.00158 45.76202 High 45.76203 127 Total Mean 25.8818 Minimum Std. deviation 19.88023 Maximum

0.00 127.00

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and 78.0%, respectively). This could imply that agricultural broadcasts enjoy wide listenership among rural dwellers whose interests can still be further enhanced by better and improved programming.

Perception of Ongoing Agricultural Broadcasts

Many of the respondents (62.7%) were favorably disposed to on-going agricultural broadcasts as shown in Table 3. Gender analysis however shows that more of the females (69.2%) were favorably disposed to ongoing agricultural broadcasts compared to the males (59.0%).
Table 2b Gender analysis of agricultural broadcast listenership Sex Listenership index Low Medium High Total Male 51 (16.7) 238 (78.0) 16 (5.3) 305 (100) Female 24 (18.0) 107 (80.5) 2 (1.5) 133 (100) Total 75 345 18

This implies that many are likely to be receptive to ideas that are propagated on the broadcasts which corroborated earlier ndings of Yahaya and Badiru (2002) in a similar study in the zone. However, it could be thus inferred that more of the females were receptive to the broadcasts compared to their male counterparts. This could be due to the fact that the broadcasts addressed the needs of the women folks. Meanwhile, the proportion of the respondents who deemed the broadcasts inadequate (male41.0% and female30.8%) is still worrisome and calls for a review and improvement of the packaging and delivery of the broadcasts to enhance listenership.

Rural Respondents Reasons for Listening to Agricultural Broadcasts

According to Table 4, it was revealed that most of the respondents (88.8%) used the information received from agricultural broadcasts for their farm work. This implies that agricultural broadcasts fulll the informational needs of the rural respondents as earlier posited by Yahaya and Badiru (2002).

Note. Figures in parenthesis are percentages within column.

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Table 3 Distribution of rural dwellers based on their perceptions of ongoing agricultural broadcasts STATEMENTS On-going agricultural broadcasts address my information needs. Even if I have all the money in the world, I would not spare a kobo on these ongoing agricultural broadcasts. The presenters seem to have good grasp of the subject matter and deliver them appropriately. The time of airing ongoing agricultural broadcasts is not conducive for effective listening. The presenters spend too much time on self-praising and irrelevancies. I am willing to contribute to the sponsorship of ongoing agricultural broadcasts if I have the means. Ongoing agricultural broadcasts formats are boring and monotonous. Ongoing agricultural broadcasts do not adequately address my information needs. Ongoing agricultural broadcasts are well packaged in my own view. The feedback mechanism of ongoing agricultural broadcasts is poor. The timing of ongoing agricultural broadcasts is appropriate. We are usually consulted before agricultural broadcasts are packaged. The packaging of ongoing agricultural broadcasts is poor. Agricultural broadcasts formats are okay the way they are. Ongoing agricultural broadcasts would have been better if we had been consulted. Ongoing agricultural broadcasts have good feedback mechanism. SA 200 (45.7) 44 (10) 5 (1.1) 18 (4.1) 18 (4.1) 86 (19.6) 39 (8.9) 22 (5.0) 29 (6.6) 65 (14.8) 24 (5.5) 33 (7.5) 49 (11.2) 25 (5.7) 79 (18.0) 132 (30.1) A 146 (33.3) 124 (28.3) 31 (7.1) 145 (33.1) 93 (21.2) 104 (23.7) 103 (23.5) 125 (28.5) 245 (55.9) 145 (33.1) 128 (29.2) 78 (17.8) 134 (30.6) 199 (45.4) 249 (56.8) 86 (19.6) U 56 (12.8) 58 (13.2) 82 (18.7) 75 (17.1) 77 (17.6) 83 (18.9) 89 (20.3) 62 (14.2) 98 (22.4) 61 (13.9) 172 (39.3) 76 (17.4) 73 (16.7) 70 (16.0) 59 (13.5) 69 (15.8) D 35 (8.0) 154 (35.2) 31 (7.1) 185 (42.2) 223 (50.9) 165 (37.7) 192 (43.8) 208 (47.5) 66 (15.1) 163 (37.2) 85 (19.4) 184 (42.0) 163 (37.2) 130 (29.7) 49 (11.2) 118 (26.9) SD 1 (0.2) 58 (13.2) 5 (1.1) 15 (3.4) 27 (6.2) 0 (0.0) 15 (3.4) 21 (4.8) 0 (0.0) 4 (0.9) 29 (6.6) 67 (15.3) 19 (4.3) 14 (3.2) 2 (0.5) 33 (7.5)

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Perception level (Frequency) Sex Male Female Total Favorable 180 (59.0) 92 (69.2) 272 Unfavorable 125 (41.0) 41 (30.8) 166 Total 305 (100.0) 133 (100.0) 438

Note. Figures in parenthesis are percentages within rows.

Test of Relationship Between Personal Characteristics of Rural Dwellers and Their Listenership of Agricultural Broadcasts
Chi-square analyses showed that rural dwellers characteristics like sex ( 2 = 5.124, P > 0.05) and primary occupation ( 2 = 14.651, P >

0.05) were not signicantly related to their perceptions of agricultural broadcasts, while educational attainment ( 2 = 69.619, P < 0.05) was signicantly related to their listenership of agricultural broadcasts (see Tables 5a and 5b). These ndings imply that listenership of agricultural broadcasts is not premised on whether a listener is male or female. It is not equally

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Table 4 Distribution of respondents by reasons for listening to agricultural broadcasts Reason I use the information for my farm work. Because my friends listen to it. I like the voice of the presenter. Others Total Frequency 389 21 4 24 438 Percent

Table 6 PPMC analysis of the relationship between listeners perception of agricultural broadcasts and listenership of agricultural broadcasts Variable r-value p-value 0.080 0.093 Decision Not signicant

88.8 4.8 0.9 5.5 100 Perception index vs. listenership index

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premised on their primary occupation. However, the direct relationship between listenership of agricultural broadcasts and educational attainment could be due to the informationseeking behavior of the rural listeners which increases with education. The more educated the listeners, the more they source for information and thus, their inclination to agricultural broadcasts listenership. Meanwhile, PPMC revealed that there was no signicant relationship between the age (r = 0.026, P > 0.05) of rural dwellers and their listenership of agricultural broadcasts. This may imply that rural dwellers listen to agriTable 5a Chi-square analyses of the relationship between personal characteristics of rural dwellers and listenership of agricultural broadcasts Rural dwellers personal characteristics Sex Education Primary Occupation

cultural broadcasts irrespective of whether they are young or old.

Test of Relationship Between Listeners Perception of Agricultural Broadcasts and Listenership of Agricultural Broadcasts
As shown in Table 6, PPMC revealed that there is no signicant relationship between listeners perception (r = 0.080, P > 0.05) of agricultural broadcasts and listenership of agricultural broadcasts. This implied that rural dwellers listen to agricultural broadcasts irrespective of their perception of such broadcasts. This could also be due to the fact that the options of agricultural broadcasts available to the rural dwellers to choose from are limited, and as a result, rural dwellers are constrained to listen to the available ones by necessity.

Chi-square value 5.124 69.619 14.651

p-value 0.275 0.000 0.145

Contingency coefcient 0.108 0.370 0.180

CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS

The study revealed that agricultural broadcasts enjoyed wide listenership among the respondents, many of who had medium listenership index. However, more of the female had medium listenership index while more of the males had high listenership index. The study also showed that their educational attainment was signicantly related to their listenership of agricultural broadcasts. Many of the rural dwellers were favorably disposed to ongoing agricultural broadcasts with more of

Table 5b PPMC analysis of the relationship between rural dwellers personal characteristics and listenership of agricultural broadcasts Variable Rural dwellers age vs. listenership index r-value p-value 0.026 0.584 Decision Not signicant

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the females having favorable perception of the broadcasts. Many of the respondents use information sourced on their farms while PPMC showed that rural dwellers perception of agricultural broadcasts was not signicantly related to their listenership of the broadcasts. It is thus recommended that agricultural broadcasts on radio should be continued although programming should be improved to sustain listenership.

REFERENCES
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Ariyo, E. (1987). Comparative analysis of radio, television and drama as communication channels to rural farmers (pp. 617; unpublished B. Sc thesis). Submitted to the Dept. of Agricultural Extension Service. Ibadan, Nigeria: University of Ibadan. CTA. (2006). The ACP-EU Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation, annual report 2006 (pp. 2229). Wageningen, Netherlands. Federal Republic of Nigeria Gazette. (2007). Federal Republic of Nigeria Gazette, Federal Government Printers, Lagos, Nigeria (vol. 94, no. 4, p. 7). Nigerian Educational Data Survey. (2011). Nigerian DHS edData survey; Education data for decision making. Retrieved from www.http://nigeria.usaid.gov/sites/default/les/ NEDS%20FINAL Report 5-23-2011.pdf

National Literacy Survey. (2010). The national literacy survey, June 2010. Retrieved from www.nigerian.stat. gov.ng Ojebode, A. (2008). Low patronage of development radio programmes in rural Nigeria: How to get beyond the rhetorics of participation. Journal of Multicultural Discourses, 3 (2), 135146. Olowu, T. A. (1993). Audience survey of radio listening group in Osun State in FAO project (Report No. NIR/87/074), Strengthening agriculture extension in Nigeria. FAO, Lagos, Lagos State, Nigeria. Olowu, T. A., & Igodan, C. O. (1989). Farmers media use pattern in six villages of Kwara state, Nigeria. Journal of Rural Development in Nigeria, 3 (2), 98102. Patel, A. U., & Ekpere, J. A. (1978). Characteristic and radio listening behavior of farmers and impact on knowledge of agricultural innovations. Agricultural Administration, 5 , 3389. Salimonu, K. K. (2007). Attitude to risk in resource allocation among food crop farmers in Osun State, Nigeria (PhD thesis). University of Ibadan, Ibadan, Nigeria. Tabing. (2007). How to do community radio: A primer for community radio operators. Retrieved from www.unesco.org/webworld/community radio. Windapo, O., & Afolayan, S. O. (2005). Group dynamics and leadership in agricultural extension. In S. F. Adedoyin (Ed.), Agricultural extension in Nigeria (pp. 134138). Ilorin, Nigeria: Agricultural Extension Society of Nigeria. Yahaya, M. K., & Badiru, O. I. (2002). Measuring the impacting on farmers of agricultural radio and television programmes in Southwest Nigeria. Journal of Applied Communications (Florida), 86 (3), 2436.