Extension Agents` Content Prefer nee of Local

Pertanika4(2), 148-155 (1981)
Extension Agents' Content Prefer nee of Local Agricultural
Publications
SAODAH WOK
Department of Development Communication, Centre for Extension and Continuing Education,
Universiti Pertanian Malaysia, Serdang, Selangor, Malaysia.
Key words: extension agents; content preference; agricultural publications.
R1NGKASAN
Agen pengembangan patut mempunyai pengetahuan yang cukup mengenai pertanian sebelum
mereka memberitahu, mengajar dan menunjukajar petani cara-cara dan teknik-teknik berkebun. Oleh itu
mereka mestilah mencari pengetahuan yang makin pesat bertambah terutama dalam bidang pertanian dan
salah satu daripada cara untuk menyaingi perkembangan tersebut adalah dengan menggunakan media massa
seperti radio, televisyen, surat khabar, majalah dan buku.
Kajian ini bertujuan untuk mengetahui kandungan penerbitan pengembangan yang digemari oleh
agen pengembangan. Kajian ini dijalankan dengan menggunakan daftar soalselidik. Responden kajian
meliputi agen pengembangan dart empat buah agensi pembangunan di Malaysia. Mereka merangkumi
pegawai-pegawai barisan hadapan, penyelia dan pentadbir dari Jabatan Pertanian, FELDA, RISDA dan LPP
dari daerah Temerloh, Kuantan dan Pekan.
Beberapa kesimpulan telah dibentuk berlandaskan hasil kajian yang diperolehi.
SUMMARY
Extension agents should have adequate knowledge of agriculture before they can inform, educate
and train the farmers in methods and techniques of farming. Hence, they should keep abreast with the
development in agriculture; and one of the ways they could do this is through the use of mass media such
as radio, television, newspapers, magazines and books.
The study attempted to find out the extension agents' content preference in agricultural
publications. Self-administered questionnaires were used in the study. The respondents comprised extension
personnel from four main development agencies in Malaysia, They were the front-line workers, supervisors,
and administrators from the Department of Agriculture, FELDA, RISDA and FOA in the districts of
Temerloh, Kuantan dan Pekan,
From the results of the study certain conclusions are derived.
extension agents' needs to be assessed. This study
attempts to find out the types of content of the
agricultural publications preferred by the extension
agents.
INTRODUCTION
Written information on progress and development in agriculture should be conveyed to all
especially those who are involved in agriculture.
One of the ways is through agricultural and
related publications such as agricultural magazines,
bulletins, leaflets, booklets and pamphlets.
OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY
The specific objectives of the study were to
determine:
1. the extension agents' sources of agricultural
information;
2. their information needs;
There are many local agricultural publications
available to extension agents. However, the usefulness or effectiveness of these publications to the
Key to author's name: Saodah Wok.
148
SAODAH WOK
TABLE 1
Distribution of respondents by job categories
3. readers'reading habits;
4. readers' views and opinions regarding the
agricultural publications;
5. readers' reasons for reading the agricultural
publications;
6. non-readers' reasons for not reading the
agricultural publications, their sources
of agricultural information and their
views and opinions about agricultural
publications; and
7. the relationship between some selected
variables and the number of agricultural
publications read.
Percentage
Front-line Workers:
FELDA Field Assistant
Agricultural Technician
FOA Agricultural Technician
RISDA Inspector
FELDA Settler Development Assistant
Subtotal
20.2
14.4
13.0
4.8
2.9
55.3
Supervisors:
11.6
FELDA Supervisor
METHODOLOGY
FOA Agricultural Assistant
Assistant RISDA Officer
Agricultural Assistant
RISDA Officer
Information data were gathered through
questionnaires distributed to extension personnel
from four main development agencies in the
country, namely, the Department of Agriculture,
Federal Land Development Authority (FELDA),
Rubber Industry and Smallholders Development
Authority (RISDA) and Farmers' Organisation
Authority (FOA).
Subtotal
7.2
7.2
5.8
1.9
33.7
Administrators:
FELDA Scheme Manager/
Officcr-in-charge
FELDA Assistant Manager
FOA*Area Manager
Agricultural Officer
Senior RISDA Officer
Assistant Agricultural Officer
Assistant State RISDA Officer
FELDA Settler Development Officer
The study was confined to three randomly
sampled districts of Pahang. The districts were
Temerloh, Kuantan and Pekan.
Subjects were randomly selected from
established FELDA schemes and from other
agencies in the three districts.
Subtotal
Respondents were classified into three categories - (i) the front-line workers, (ii) supervisors
and (iii) administrators. (Table 1). The front-line
workers deal directly with the farmers, whereas
the supervisors mainly help in the supervision
of the front-line workers. The administrators are
the policy-makers for any extension programme.
2.9
1.9
1.9
1.4
1.4
0.5
0.5
0.5
11.0
Total
100.0
N
208
FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS OF THE STUDY
1.
Pretesting of questionnaires was done in the
state of Selangor with officers from the four main
development agencies selected.
Data were collected from 208 respondents,
thus giving a 90 per cent response rate.
The data were subjected to frequency distributions, the Pearson correlation analysis, t-tests,
one-way analysis of variance and Chi-square
tests and analysed at the FELDA Computer Centre
using the subprograms of the Statistical Package
for the Social Science (SPSS).
The extension agents* source of agricultural
information:
The three main sources of agricultural
information were newspapers, radio and
television. Though all respondents read
newspapers, their preferences varied. It was
found that the front-line workers preferred
to read Malay newspapers such as "Utusan
Malaysia" and "Berita Harian" while the
supervisors and administrators tended to
read both the Malay and English newspapers
(preferably "New Straits Times").
Although a large percentage of the
administrators owned radio and television
sets, the front-line workers tended to
listen to or watch more agricultural programmes than either the supervisors or the
administrators.
A 0.05 level of probability was set in
determining the significance of relationship between
the variables.
149
EXTENSION AGENTS' CONTENT PREFERENCE
The extension agents1 information needs:
One important aspect of this study was to
ascertain the respondents' information needs
so that the contents of the future publications
could satisfy these needs.
received. It is apparent that publishers should
ensure that the target audience receive
publications regularly. This could be done by
updating the mailing lists.
Generally the publications were read at
home and between breaks in offices. The
majority of the respondents said that they
only read the interesting articles in the
publications, a finding which coincided with
that of Voyles and Lemert (1959) and
Funkhouse's(1969).
As all the three categories of respondents
are often consulted by farmers on technical
problems pertaining to agronomy, plant
protection, and agricultural economics besides
extension and communication, it is essential
than their knowledge in these areas be
constantly updated if they are to advise
interested farmers. Hence, the extension
agents' information needs are directly related
to solving farmers' problems.
It was found that respondents preferred
articles pertaining to agriculture, agricultural
economics, extension and communication.
The findings indicate that there is a need
for publishing agencies to include more articles
pertaining to technical aspects of agriculture
but not at the expense of more general topics
so that a balance between the technical and
general reading is achieved.
The findings in this study support Gray's
(1930) opinion that readers at all levels of
learning seek more information relevant to
their vocation and progress - information
that will add to their efficiency and tend to
create in them a feeling of security.
3.
It was also found that the majority of the
readers kept the publications aside for future
reference. This indicates that they appreciated
and valued the publications.
Readers' reading habits:
The number of publications that the
respondents knew exceeded the number of
publications that they actually read (Table 2
and Table 3). It was found that the front-line
workers did not receive agricultural publications that the supervisors or the administrators
It is suggested that some consideration
should be given to the current reading habits
of extension agents and, where necessary,
TABLE 2
Distribution of respondents by job categories and number of publications known
Number of Publications
Known by the
Respondents
Job Categories
Front-line
worker
Supervisor
Administrator
Percentage
Percentage
Percentage
4
5
6
7 or more
20.2
7.0
10.5
11.4
11.4
22.0
1.4
18.6
12.9
12.9
10.0
4.3
5.7
34.2
13,0
4.3
17.4
8.7
13.0
8.7
34.9
Total
100.0
100.0
100.0
N
114
70
23
0
1
2
6.1
11.4
3
Mean
S.D.
Range
150
4.3
4.7
5.1
3.0
3.3
2.8
0 - 13
0 - 13
1 - 11
SAODAH WOK
TABLE 3
Distribution of respondents by job categories and number of publications read
Job Categories
Number of Publications Read
Front-line
worker
Supervisor
Administrator
Percentage
Percentage
Percentage
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7 or more
17.9
17.9
17.9
15.2
10.7
8.9
8.0
3.5
10.0
14.3
13.0
17.5
Total
100.0
100.0
100.0
N
112
70
23
4.3
20.0
21.4
15.7
17.4
17.4
13.0
4.3
8.7
8.7
8.6
Mean
2.6
3.4
3.9
S.D.
2.1
2.5
2.7
0-12
0-10
Range
0-9
steps should be taken to encourage the
cultivation of good reading habits.
4.
5.7
,
Department of Agriculture (Table 4). However, it was felt that there was a certain
extent of duplication and redundancy of
articles.
Readers9 views and opinion regarding the
agricultural publications:
5.
In general, all three categories considered
the publications to be semi-technical. They
also found that the information in the publications was up-to-date and useful; and
improved their competency in extension
work and helped them improve their understanding and skill in agriculture. The only
drawback was that the information in the
publications did not synchronize with local
needs and situations as they arose. It is
suggested that publishing agencies should
endeavour to provide information on a
schedule that, as far as possible, would appear
at appropriate times.
Readers' reasons for reading the agricultural
publications:
It was found that the main reason for
reading agricultural publications was to
improve their own knowledge. The result
lends support to the findings of Gray and
Munroe (1930), Voyles and Lemert (1959)
and Moshey (1972). The supervisors and the
administrators often used the publications as
reference, but the front-line workers read
merely "to help farmers". Other reasons
given by the respondents were "to occupy
leisure time", "the publications are made
available to them", "as a hobby", "forced
to read", "for research work" and "for
comparison purposes".
The majority of each of the three categories preferred publications in Bahasa
Malaysia. More than half of the respondents
were prepared to pay for the publications
which they currently receive without charge.
6.
Non-readers:
There were 26 respondents who did not
read any agricultural publication at all. The
majority of these respondents cited "the
publications are not available" as their main
reason for not reading.
Respondents viewed that the competent
publishing agencies in specific areas of
agriculture were Universiti Pertanian Malaysia
(UPM), Malaysian Agricultural Research and
Development Institute (MARDI) and the
The next important reason given was
"busy/no time". Phifer et aL, (1961) records
151
TABLE 4
Distribution of respondents by job categories and their opinion regarding the competency of some of the publishing agencies
Agencies
Others
.
.Z
N
*FW : Front-line Worker
S : Supervisor
A : Administrator
<
•
-
•
FELDA
RISDA
UPM
MARDI
*FW S A
*FW S A
*FW S A
*FW S A
*FW S A
Frequency
Frequency
Frequency
Frequency
Frequency
15
10
8
20
23
26
4
1
2
1
7
9
6
-
17 7 4
8 4 2
6 3 1
16 12 2
10 7 5
21 22 5
27
30
28
43
32
43
2
44
14
26
17
10
12
40
14
23
20
2
9
14
6
10
6
1
1
j
_
_
83 57 21
83 57 21
30
47
37
35
30
31
6
27
29
19
34
21
26
-
12
8
5
9
4
9
-
83 57 21
:
;
5
3
2
17
15
17
1
25
32
26
33
38
31
2
9
10 :.
8 §
10 :
14
1
83 57 21
83 57 21
Others (e.g.
FOA, Majuikan)
*FW S A
Frequency
5
1 1 1
••:
^
?
-
_
2 l
6 2 3
1 1 2 1
— 1—
1 2
83 57 21
CONTENT PREFERENC
Subject Matter in Agricultural
Extension publications
Agronomy/Plant Protection
Agricultural Engineering
Animal Husbandry/Fisheries
Agricultural Economics
Home Economics
Extension/Communication
Dept of
Agriculture
I NSION /kGENl S'
Readers' Opinion
a
SAODAH WOK
counterparts. The number of agricultural
publications read tended to increase with
the higher degree of cosmopoliteness
(orientation outside one's social system)
among the administrators. Surprisingly,
the extension agents who had less contact
with farmers tended to read more agricultural
publications than those who had more
frequent contact with farmers, thus implying
that the extension agents who had less contact
with farmers had more free time to read the
publications.
the same reason in their study. Other reasons
given by this category of workers, laziness,
could be attributed to failure to realise the
need for the information, and ignorance of
the existence of publications. To overcome
the last reason cited, it is suggested that
publishing agencies should bring their
publications to the attention of extension
agents especially at the time they are
published. Mass media (radio, television and
newspaper) could help in this.
The non-readers', however, did get
agricultural and extension information by
attending short courses; through the mass
media, informational circulars, and from
consulting senior officers.
Front-line workers and administrators,
who had high job aspiration scores and
perception scores of their roles as extension
agents, tended to read more agricultural
publications than those with low job aspiration
scores and perception scores.
Almost all the non-readers indicated that
they would like to read agricultural publications in the future. If they could secure these
publications, they would like to read articles
on agronomy and plant protection, agricultural
economics and extension/communication. It
was suggested the publications should be
published in Bahasa Malaysia. They also
regarded Universiti Pertanian Malaysia (UPM),
Malaysian Agricultural Research and Development Institute (MARDI), and the Department
of Agriculture as organisations competent to
produce literature on the various aspects of
agriculture.
7.
The overall relationships of the variables
and reading of agricultural publications are
shown in Table 5.
CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
The results of the study would indicate that
extension agents do read some of the agricultural
publications. Apart from their reliance on the
agricultural publications for agricultural information, the extension agents also resorted to newspapers, radio and television. The extension agents
preferred to read interesting articles on selected
areas of agriculture.
The relationship between some selected
variables and the number of agricultural
publications read:
Many factors are associated with reading.
These include factors such as age (Gray,
1930; Millart 1964; Schramm and White,
1949; and Sokomba, 1977), education (Gray,
Schramm and White, Sawhney, 1967;Davison,
1976) and socio-economic status an
income (Schramm and White, McNelly ana
Deutschmann, 1963; Greenberg and Dervin,
1970; Whiting and Stanfield, 1972),
They viewed the publications as up-to-date
and useful but felt that the information in the
publications was less timely to local needs and
situations. They appreciated and preferred
agricultural publications in Bahasa Malaysia. They
were also willing to pay for any agricultural
publication at a reasonable price. The extension
agents perceived certain agencies as being competent to produce agriculture publications pertaining to a particular subject matter area.
Among the selected variables that were
studied it was found that among the supervisors and administrators, level of education
was significant and positively related to
reading intensity. The results also indicated
that the number of agricultural publications
read by the supervisors and aministrators
correlated positively with income level.
Supervisors and administrators, who were
young and less experienced in agriculture
and extension work, tended to read more
publications than their older and experienced
The main reason for reading the agricultural
publications was to increase knowledge level
whereas the non-readers claimed that ''unavailability of the publications" was their main
reason for not reading.
Agricultural publications should be provided
to extension agents who make use of these
publications. These extension agents were those
who had high educational level, better income,
high degree of cosmopoliteness, high job aspirations
and high perceptions of their roles.
153
TABLE 5
Relationship between some selected variables and respondents' number of agricultural extension publications read
Number of Agricultural Extension Publications Read
Some Selected
Variables
Front-line Worker
Supervisor
W
X
tn
Administrator
en
0
>
Income
Age
Agricultural Experience
Extension Experience
Cosmopoliteness
Contact With Farmers
Job Aspiration
Perception of Their Roles
as Extension Agents
112
112
107
107
112
112
112
0.0813
-0.0509
0.0495
0.0416
0.0174
-0.1769
0.1959
0.394
0.594
0.613
0.680
0.856
0.062
0.038
70
70
69
68
70
70
70
0.3644
-0.1966
-0.2451
-0.1443
-0.0860
-0.1344
-0.0207
0.002
0.103
0.042
0.240
0.479
0.267
0.865
23
23
22
21
23
23
23
0.2670
-0.2505
-0.2220
-0.3519
0.1702
-0.0780
0.1472
0.218
0.249
0.321
0.118
0.438
0.724
0.503
112
0.1073
0.260
70
-0.1265
0.297
23
0.3144
0.144
o
tn
o
c
™
pa
-
w
w
SAODAH WOK
GREENBERG, B.S. and DERVIN, B. (1970): Use of the
Mass Media by the Urban Poor. New York. Praeger.
It is recommended that publishers tailor the
content of publications to the needs of their target
audience. It is suggested that competition among
the producing agencies for readers and duplication
of subject matter in publications should be
eliminated. Cooperation and complementary
effort among knowledge centres/information
Sources should be developed and maintained to
see that current and up-to-date information is
transmitted continuously and at the appropriate
times.
MCNELLY, J.T. and DEUTSCHMANN, P.J, (1963):
Media Use and Socio-economic Status in a Latin
American Capital, Gazzette 11: 1-15.
MlLLARD, W.J. JR (1964): Reader Characteristics and
Content Preference for a Denominational Magazine.
Journalism Quarterly, 46: 433-6.
PHIFER, B., JUDKINS, B, and FRUTCHEY, F (1961):
The Vermont Publications Study. A Report on
Selected Extension Publication. Federal Extension
Service. USDA.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The author wishes to express her thanks to
all those who helped in her work especially to
Encik Mohd. Yusof Hussain, Encik Rahim Md.
Sail, Prof. Lloyd R. Bostian, Prof. Nayan Ariffin,
Associate Prof. Dr. Alang Perang Abdul Rahman
Zainuddin,
Encik Mohd. Fadzilah Kamsah,
Associate Prof. J J . Augustin and Puan Jamaliyah
Mohd. Yassin.
SAHWNEY, M.M. (1967): Farm Practical Adoption and
Use of Information and Media in a Rural Community
in India. Rural Sosiology, 32: 311-23.
SCHRAMM, W. and WHITE, D.M. (1949): Age, Education, Economic Status: Factors in Newspaper
Reading, Journalism Quarterly, 26: 149-59.
SOKOMBA, J.T. (1977): Reception, Understanding and
Use of Extension Publication by Extension Workers
in Nigeria. M.S. Thesis. University of Wisconsin.
Madison.
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155