Vol. 12, Special Issue 10 (2023)

Author(s):
A Vennila Mary, A Kishore and Shaam Arafath Mohamed Niyas

Abstract:
Social media plays a significant role in the agriculture sector, especially in existing farmers’ associations in the country; the dissemination of agricultural information is highly required to maintain the connection of the members and agencies that help them (Yobhel et al., 2022). Presently various forces are working to change the agricultural extension from a process of technology transfer to a process of facilitating wide range of communication, information and advocacy services (Kumar and Ratnakar, 2016). Farmers were found to have a positive attitude toward using social media platforms to improve their agricultural knowledge. Usage of social media for conducting farmers training will assist them to gain knowledge on agriculture. In addition, social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube are being used to educate farmers all over the country (Jijina and Raju, 2016). In the present study similar numbers of farmers registered for the training sessions on apiculture, mushroom cultivation, and Azolla production, which indicates that only a selected set of educated farmers are interested in taking advantage of these online training programmes. The majority of farmers made registration through Whatsapp (38.5%) followed by Facebook (21.7%), Instagram (21.5%), Telegram (16.7%) and Twitter (1.49%).