ANALYSIS OF ACCESS AND USE OF SOCIAL MEDIA FOR AGRICULTURAL INFORMATION AMONG POULTRY FARMERS IN ABIA STATE, NIGERIA

Abstract

The study analyzed access and use of social media for agricultural information among poultry farmers in Abia State, Nigeria. The specific objectives were to: describe the socio-economic characteristics of the respondents; determine the level of utilization of social media for agricultural information; and determine the level of access to social media for agricultural information of the poultry farmers in the study area. Multi-stage random sampling techniques were used to select 126 poultry farmers. Data were collected with the aid of a structured questionnaire. Data were analyzed using simple descriptive and inferential statistics. The results revealed that the majority (65.10%) of the respondents were males and married (82.5%), with an average age of 45.1 years. The majority of the respondents (68.3%) attended post-secondary education. Facebook (????̅ = 3.46), and WhatsApp (????̅ = 3.40) were highly accessed for agricultural information, and utilized (????̅ = 3.29; 3.60). The result of the relationship between the selected socioeconomic characteristics of poultry farmers and use of social media for agricultural information showed that age (p-value = -4.998), farming experience (p-value = 1.924), educational level (p-value = 2.399) and Membership of cooperatives (p-value = 2.083) influenced the use of social media for agricultural information. The study recommended that the ADP’s campaigns should prioritize utilizing popular youth-centric platforms such as WhatsApp, Facebook, and YouTube to reach graduate agripreneurs and farmers of livestock programmes.