Author(s):

Angelina Patro, Atul Yadav and RK Talukdar

Abstract: The first and foremost challenge for the nation builders is the development of rural areas. Changing the behavior of rural community in terms of knowledge, skills and attitudes is the major thrust towards rural development. In this major source of livelihood, contribution of women in modern times in unlimited both at home and farm. Despite their significant role in agriculture, farm women still have to carry out their agricultural activities without much support from the agricultural support services such as extension (training), input supply, marketing and credit. This research study was conducted in Odisha among the active farm women to check the effective utilization of different communication methods. For our study we have used three major communication methods viz. Individual, Group and Mass Method. The respondents were interviewed about their usage of different sources of communication and its frequency of utilization. It was observed that most of the farm women contact VLEW once in a month and mostly prefer to take suggestions from progressive farmers, friends and relatives. Further, according to the findings it was noted that 85.00 per cent of farm women never attended any training programmes, which was due to poor government initiatives to empower the women. Though, mass media is undoubtedly an important tool in bringing about social change and modernization in developing nations. But in our study, it was seen that farm women rarely used mass media sources for obtaining agricultural information due to lack of spare time. Among all the mass media sources, radio was one of the most widely used sources for obtaining agricultural information other than farm literatures. Further, it was observed that socio-personal characteristics influenced (29.00%) utilization of mass communication methods.

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