Changing Landscape of Farm Journalism
Changing Landscape of Farm Journalism
Dr.T.P.Sethumadhavan
“ You should never try to win an argument. That is a low form of conversation. You should let the other person speak his mind and then just let in your piece, leaving it to the words to do their work gently. While writing you try to avoid favorite forms of phrases or words that you think will score over other person but sacrifices them in the interests of brevity and clarity. Never underestimate or overestimate a person because of his appearance”- Late Sri. K.R.Narayanan
Introduction
We are living in an era characterized by different levels of human disparity and livelihood insecurity. More than 20 crores of people in the country are living below poverty line. Protein malnutrition is an alarming issue; whereas food safety is an imminent issue. The availability and requirement of animal protein sources are more than 200 percent in the country. It is in this context we have to emphasize the importance of farm journalism for augmenting livestock production in the country. Veterinarians have to play a key role in this sector who have to concentrate on farmer friendly research, need based extension programmes and issues which are directly or indirectly affecting the farming community.
Ever since the beginning of planned development in the country, the role of the media in the process of development has been recognized. Information is an important resource input in the process of gradual and orderly change in the tradition bound rural areas. With the launching of the decentralized planning followed by vigorous efforts to empower women and the renewed enthusiasm to spread the light of literacy, the mass media is now in an advantageous position to meet the challenges of rural uplift. In the globalised era we cannot afford to leave our villagers behind resulting in imbalanced growth. This emphasizes the need for evolving a new and effective development communication strategy for rural India.
Indian Livestock scenario
It needs special mention that India’s programme of reforms and economic liberalization opens significant market led opportunities for livestock sector. Sustained economic growth and rising domestic income are driving rapid growth in livestock product demand. This has fostered the rapid expansion of livestock output in recent years. India has now emerged as the largest milk producer in the world with 91 million tones per annum. Major share of this growth in livestock sector is attributed to dairy and poultry sectors. Country’s livestock population continues to grow steadily, especially among goats and poultry. Of the total households in rural areas, about 73 percent own livestock. Income from livestock sector accounts for 15-40 per cent of total farm household incomes. Small and marginal farmers account for three fourth of this household raising 56 per cent of Bovine population. Kerala occupying just 1.18 per cent of the total geographic area of the country accommodates over 110 crops and the entire livestock population spread over 60 lakh smallholdings. Due to the impact of cross breeding programme on cattle development in the state milk production has increased from 2.2 lakh tones during 1963-64 to around 28 lakh tones in 2003-04. The percent of crossbred females has reached 82 in the state, the highest in the country.
Farm journalism-
Farmer oriented or community led research findings and user-friendly technologies should be disseminated among the farming community. The media strategies for rural development essentially include the rural press, local radio stations, rural programmes on television, Internet, cable TV, cell phone and reinforcement through extension agencies, so as to facilitate and reinforce the adoption process through interpersonal and face-to-face communication process.
Major development in the last two decades has been the evolution of special farm pages in the major newspapers including those in Malayalam. Today the press plays an effective role in the dissemination of information on the farm front. This three-decade-old innovation in the area of agricultural development and communication, viz, farm journalism has been producing a tremendous impact on the farming community. It has led to the emergence of a new group of writers namely farm journalists in the history of development journalism.
Several innovative concepts have to be put into practice for reaching millions of farm holdings so as to provide information and confidence to adopt modern technologies. Farmers used to accept them by successfully blending their rich traditional knowledge. Leading Malayalam, Kannada, Tamil, Hindi, Telugu and Bengali dailies used to publish articles of interest to the farmers from their very inception. As far as electronic media is concerned All India Radio, Doordarsan and private TV channels are regularly producing programmes for the farmers. The commencement of the weekly farm feature in Malayalam dailies was a development, which caught the attention of the media and development circles quickly producing a unique impact in the public in general and those concerned with farming in particular. Farm feature pages cover agriculture, animal husbandry, fisheries and allied areas. Nevertheless, publishers need to provide accurate and acceptable information regularly through farm feature pages.
Kerala being a state with high literacy rate in the country, farm publications and newspapers can play a key role in the transfer of appropriate technologies to livestock farmers. Newspapers can focus attention of the farmers towards farm technology and can create interest in them. In the innovation decision process they can be used at all stages, but more useful during the awareness stage. If properly utilized they can also influence farmers in the adoption stage and will reduce the technological gap.
Recent initiatives
The aim of the World society on information held recently in Tunis was to ensure the benefits of the digital revolution reach every part of the country by 2015. As part of the ‘Connect World’ India’s mission is to start village knowledge centers by 2007. It is based on the principle of an integrated and appropriate use of Internet, cable TV, cell phone, community radio and the vernacular press. The relevance and content should be demand driven and area, culture and time specific. What is important is to ensure that all the initiatives designed to help rural poor in design and development.
Moreover India opened its public sector agriculture research to US private companies enabling the private sector to help identify research areas that have the potential of rapid commercialization with a view to developing viable technologies. Areas of collaboration are expected to include research on sustainable agriculture and marketing systems, use of new information and communication technologies, international food safety and sanitary requirements. The food safety and standards bill 2005, now before a parliamentary standing committee, is the latest in a series of recent initiatives that seeks to diversify agriculture and encourage the vital food processing industry. The proposed legislation will update all existing laws on the subject and usher in food management and safety standards.
Research Highlights
Recent research findings done by the author revealed that Malayalam dailies provided less than one-fourth space of farm feature pages for publishing animal husbandry information. This necessitated more coverage to animal husbandry sector since its contribution to state’s GDP is comparatively higher.
Among different categories of news, even though large animals got more than 50 per cent coverage, buffaloes had been largely neglected. Cows got nearly three-fourth coverage when compared to other large animals. Poultry sector got only one-fourth coverage. Small animals and pet animals occupied 17 per cent and seven per cent space respectively. In general, space provided to different animal husbandry information was obviously less.
Integrated farming got coverage of only two per cent. It is a promising practice towards sustainable agriculture. In view of its ecological and economic significance, media should play a significant role in propagating the concept of integrated farming. Relatively more space was allotted for publishing animal husbandry information related to advance in technology in farm feature pages. Of the five modes of presentation news articles occupied maximum column length in all dailies studied. Frequency of occurrence of news articles, illustrations and question answers were found to be more when compared to other modes of presentation. Articles on cows appeared most frequently. But on buffaloes appeared at an interval of 112 days. More than half the number of dairy articles and nearly one-eighth number of poultry articles published was seasonal. Low seasonality of poultry articles necessitate that more emphasis should be given to maintain seasonality. Reading easiness of dairy articles was found to be good with an average readability as indicated by Fog index of 5.45. More than half the number of dairy articles was found to be relevant. Even though more than two-third scientific messages of dairy articles were accurate; accuracy of general articles was just above 50 per cent. Scientific messages of management articles got maximum accuracy of 73.4 per cent.
Conclusion
Print and electronic media have to revise their media policy in favor of farm sector so that more coverage to animal husbandry information could be given in newspapers and in the electronic media. Animal husbandry feature pages can be published separately on weekly basis.
More coverage of animal husbandry information reported in the four dailies has been in the form of news articles. Scientists and veterinarians should be given a larger share in dailies for reporting their research findings in the form of popular articles.
A regular mechanism should be followed for verifying the accuracy of articles. Experts in the field of agricultural and animal husbandry can be appointed as editors of farm pages.
Malayalam dailies should give maximum importance to common man’s level of readability. Scientists, veterinarians, extension workers, journalists and research institutions should provide timely and relevant animal husbandry related information frequently to the press.
A separate publication and extension division can be started under Directorate of animal husbandry to co-ordinate the coverage of animal husbandry information in the various media. It can be developed as animal husbandry information bureau in future.
Farm Journalism courses should be incorporated along with the curriculum of Veterinary courses. Sufficient training should be imparted to field veterinarians, scientists and students to write popular articles.
Farm feature workshops for improving farm columns should be organized at least once in six months. Editors of respective dailies, Research Institutions, Farm Information Bureau, Animal Husbandry Department, Dairy Development Department, Livestock Development Board, Regional Milk Unions, etc, should take initiation for conducting the workshop.
Content analysis studies on animal husbandry information need to be repeated annually. Moreover, farm journals; Animal husbandry programmes of AIR, Doordarsan and different TV channels should be subjected to detailed content analysis studies to assess the extent of coverage, readability, relevancy, accuracy and reading comprehension.
*Asst Director, Department of Animal Husbandry, Kerala & Visiting Scientist, Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC, USA
Dr.T.P.Sethumadhavan
“ You should never try to win an argument. That is a low form of conversation. You should let the other person speak his mind and then just let in your piece, leaving it to the words to do their work gently. While writing you try to avoid favorite forms of phrases or words that you think will score over other person but sacrifices them in the interests of brevity and clarity. Never underestimate or overestimate a person because of his appearance”- Late Sri. K.R.Narayanan
Introduction
We are living in an era characterized by different levels of human disparity and livelihood insecurity. More than 20 crores of people in the country are living below poverty line. Protein malnutrition is an alarming issue; whereas food safety is an imminent issue. The availability and requirement of animal protein sources are more than 200 percent in the country. It is in this context we have to emphasize the importance of farm journalism for augmenting livestock production in the country. Veterinarians have to play a key role in this sector who have to concentrate on farmer friendly research, need based extension programmes and issues which are directly or indirectly affecting the farming community.
Ever since the beginning of planned development in the country, the role of the media in the process of development has been recognized. Information is an important resource input in the process of gradual and orderly change in the tradition bound rural areas. With the launching of the decentralized planning followed by vigorous efforts to empower women and the renewed enthusiasm to spread the light of literacy, the mass media is now in an advantageous position to meet the challenges of rural uplift. In the globalised era we cannot afford to leave our villagers behind resulting in imbalanced growth. This emphasizes the need for evolving a new and effective development communication strategy for rural India.
Indian Livestock scenario
It needs special mention that India’s programme of reforms and economic liberalization opens significant market led opportunities for livestock sector. Sustained economic growth and rising domestic income are driving rapid growth in livestock product demand. This has fostered the rapid expansion of livestock output in recent years. India has now emerged as the largest milk producer in the world with 91 million tones per annum. Major share of this growth in livestock sector is attributed to dairy and poultry sectors. Country’s livestock population continues to grow steadily, especially among goats and poultry. Of the total households in rural areas, about 73 percent own livestock. Income from livestock sector accounts for 15-40 per cent of total farm household incomes. Small and marginal farmers account for three fourth of this household raising 56 per cent of Bovine population. Kerala occupying just 1.18 per cent of the total geographic area of the country accommodates over 110 crops and the entire livestock population spread over 60 lakh smallholdings. Due to the impact of cross breeding programme on cattle development in the state milk production has increased from 2.2 lakh tones during 1963-64 to around 28 lakh tones in 2003-04. The percent of crossbred females has reached 82 in the state, the highest in the country.
Farm journalism-
Farmer oriented or community led research findings and user-friendly technologies should be disseminated among the farming community. The media strategies for rural development essentially include the rural press, local radio stations, rural programmes on television, Internet, cable TV, cell phone and reinforcement through extension agencies, so as to facilitate and reinforce the adoption process through interpersonal and face-to-face communication process.
Major development in the last two decades has been the evolution of special farm pages in the major newspapers including those in Malayalam. Today the press plays an effective role in the dissemination of information on the farm front. This three-decade-old innovation in the area of agricultural development and communication, viz, farm journalism has been producing a tremendous impact on the farming community. It has led to the emergence of a new group of writers namely farm journalists in the history of development journalism.
Several innovative concepts have to be put into practice for reaching millions of farm holdings so as to provide information and confidence to adopt modern technologies. Farmers used to accept them by successfully blending their rich traditional knowledge. Leading Malayalam, Kannada, Tamil, Hindi, Telugu and Bengali dailies used to publish articles of interest to the farmers from their very inception. As far as electronic media is concerned All India Radio, Doordarsan and private TV channels are regularly producing programmes for the farmers. The commencement of the weekly farm feature in Malayalam dailies was a development, which caught the attention of the media and development circles quickly producing a unique impact in the public in general and those concerned with farming in particular. Farm feature pages cover agriculture, animal husbandry, fisheries and allied areas. Nevertheless, publishers need to provide accurate and acceptable information regularly through farm feature pages.
Kerala being a state with high literacy rate in the country, farm publications and newspapers can play a key role in the transfer of appropriate technologies to livestock farmers. Newspapers can focus attention of the farmers towards farm technology and can create interest in them. In the innovation decision process they can be used at all stages, but more useful during the awareness stage. If properly utilized they can also influence farmers in the adoption stage and will reduce the technological gap.
Recent initiatives
The aim of the World society on information held recently in Tunis was to ensure the benefits of the digital revolution reach every part of the country by 2015. As part of the ‘Connect World’ India’s mission is to start village knowledge centers by 2007. It is based on the principle of an integrated and appropriate use of Internet, cable TV, cell phone, community radio and the vernacular press. The relevance and content should be demand driven and area, culture and time specific. What is important is to ensure that all the initiatives designed to help rural poor in design and development.
Moreover India opened its public sector agriculture research to US private companies enabling the private sector to help identify research areas that have the potential of rapid commercialization with a view to developing viable technologies. Areas of collaboration are expected to include research on sustainable agriculture and marketing systems, use of new information and communication technologies, international food safety and sanitary requirements. The food safety and standards bill 2005, now before a parliamentary standing committee, is the latest in a series of recent initiatives that seeks to diversify agriculture and encourage the vital food processing industry. The proposed legislation will update all existing laws on the subject and usher in food management and safety standards.
Research Highlights
Recent research findings done by the author revealed that Malayalam dailies provided less than one-fourth space of farm feature pages for publishing animal husbandry information. This necessitated more coverage to animal husbandry sector since its contribution to state’s GDP is comparatively higher.
Among different categories of news, even though large animals got more than 50 per cent coverage, buffaloes had been largely neglected. Cows got nearly three-fourth coverage when compared to other large animals. Poultry sector got only one-fourth coverage. Small animals and pet animals occupied 17 per cent and seven per cent space respectively. In general, space provided to different animal husbandry information was obviously less.
Integrated farming got coverage of only two per cent. It is a promising practice towards sustainable agriculture. In view of its ecological and economic significance, media should play a significant role in propagating the concept of integrated farming. Relatively more space was allotted for publishing animal husbandry information related to advance in technology in farm feature pages. Of the five modes of presentation news articles occupied maximum column length in all dailies studied. Frequency of occurrence of news articles, illustrations and question answers were found to be more when compared to other modes of presentation. Articles on cows appeared most frequently. But on buffaloes appeared at an interval of 112 days. More than half the number of dairy articles and nearly one-eighth number of poultry articles published was seasonal. Low seasonality of poultry articles necessitate that more emphasis should be given to maintain seasonality. Reading easiness of dairy articles was found to be good with an average readability as indicated by Fog index of 5.45. More than half the number of dairy articles was found to be relevant. Even though more than two-third scientific messages of dairy articles were accurate; accuracy of general articles was just above 50 per cent. Scientific messages of management articles got maximum accuracy of 73.4 per cent.
Conclusion
Print and electronic media have to revise their media policy in favor of farm sector so that more coverage to animal husbandry information could be given in newspapers and in the electronic media. Animal husbandry feature pages can be published separately on weekly basis.
More coverage of animal husbandry information reported in the four dailies has been in the form of news articles. Scientists and veterinarians should be given a larger share in dailies for reporting their research findings in the form of popular articles.
A regular mechanism should be followed for verifying the accuracy of articles. Experts in the field of agricultural and animal husbandry can be appointed as editors of farm pages.
Malayalam dailies should give maximum importance to common man’s level of readability. Scientists, veterinarians, extension workers, journalists and research institutions should provide timely and relevant animal husbandry related information frequently to the press.
A separate publication and extension division can be started under Directorate of animal husbandry to co-ordinate the coverage of animal husbandry information in the various media. It can be developed as animal husbandry information bureau in future.
Farm Journalism courses should be incorporated along with the curriculum of Veterinary courses. Sufficient training should be imparted to field veterinarians, scientists and students to write popular articles.
Farm feature workshops for improving farm columns should be organized at least once in six months. Editors of respective dailies, Research Institutions, Farm Information Bureau, Animal Husbandry Department, Dairy Development Department, Livestock Development Board, Regional Milk Unions, etc, should take initiation for conducting the workshop.
Content analysis studies on animal husbandry information need to be repeated annually. Moreover, farm journals; Animal husbandry programmes of AIR, Doordarsan and different TV channels should be subjected to detailed content analysis studies to assess the extent of coverage, readability, relevancy, accuracy and reading comprehension.
*Asst Director, Department of Animal Husbandry, Kerala & Visiting Scientist, Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC, USA
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