Farmers’ Exposure to Virtual Agricultural Channels Broadcasted Through YouTube

Abstract

YouTube is a popular social media for disseminating agricultural information among the farmers through uploading agricultural videos. However the extent of farmers’ exposure to it is hardly assessed through academic research. The specific objective of the study was to determine the extent of farmers’ exposure to virtual agricultural channels broadcasted through YouTube. Attempts were also made to analyze twelve selected socio-economic characteristics of the farmers and their relationships with the extent of exposure to virtual agricultural channels broadcasted through YouTube and to identify problems faced by the farmers in exposing virtual agricultural channels broadcasted through YouTube. The study was conducted at Dumuria upazila under Khulna district of Bangladesh. Data were collected from eighty (80) farmers selected through snowball sampling technique, by means of personal interview using an interview schedule from 25th August, 2022 to 27th February, 2023. Appropriate scales were used in order to measure the concern variables. Spearman’s ranked correlation co-efficient (ρ) was used to determine the relationships between the independent and dependent variables. Three-fifth (60%) of the respondent farmers had low exposure compared to two-fifth (40%) of total farmers having “medium exposure” to virtual agricultural channels broadcasted through YouTube. Among the ten channels, the farmers were highly exposed to Math Krishi (88.75%) while they were less exposed to Agamirkrishi (3.33%). Among twelve characteristics of the respondent farmers education, cosmopolitanism, extension media contact, contact with other virtual media and knowledge on virtual agricultural channels broadcasted through YouTube showed a positive significant relationship while age, family size and farming experience showed negative significant relationships with the farmers’ exposure to virtual agricultural channels broadcasted through YouTube. Majority (55%) of the farmers faced high problem while exposing to virtual agricultural channels broadcasted through YouTube. Farmers faced problems highly for being too busy to browse internet (81.67%) while illiteracy (53.75%) was the least severe problem for exposing to virtual agricultural channels broadcasted through YouTube. This study proposes farmers’ exposure to virtual agricultural channels broadcasted through YouTube including some new ideas and suggestions as to how mass media and government can participate in providing more technological opportunities to facilitate the farmers for more efficient work.