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Dr. Rajendra Prasad Central Agricultural University, Pusa

In the imperial Gazetteer of India 1878, Pusa was recorded as a government estate of about 1350 acres in Darbhanba. It was acquired by East India Company for running a stud farm to supply better breed of horses mainly for the army. Frequent incidence of glanders disease (swelling of glands), mostly affecting the valuable imported bloodstock made the civil veterinary department to shift the entire stock out of Pusa. A British tobacco concern Beg Sutherland & co. got the estate on lease but it also left in 1897 abandoning the government estate of Pusa. Lord Mayo, The Viceroy and Governor General, had been repeatedly trying to get through his proposal for setting up a directorate general of Agriculture that would take care of the soil and its productivity, formulate newer techniques of cultivation, improve the quality of seeds and livestock and also arrange for imparting agricultural education. The government of India had invited a British expert. Dr. J. A. Voelcker who had submitted as report on the development of Indian agriculture. As a follow-up action, three experts in different fields were appointed for the first time during 1885 to 1895 namely, agricultural chemist (Dr. J. W. Leafer), cryptogamic botanist (Dr. R. A. Butler) and entomologist (Dr. H. Maxwell Lefroy) with headquarters at Dehradun (U.P.) in the forest Research Institute complex. Surprisingly, until now Pusa, which was destined to become the centre of agricultural revolution in the country, was lying as before an abandoned government estate. In 1898. Lord Curzon took over as the viceroy. A widely traveled person and an administrator, he salvaged out the earlier proposal and got London’s approval for the appointment of the inspector General of Agriculture to which the first incumbent Mr. J. Mollison (Dy. Director of Agriculture, Bombay) joined in 1901 with headquarters at Nagpur The then government of Bengal had mooted in 1902 a proposal to the centre for setting up a model cattle farm for improving the dilapidated condition of the livestock at Pusa estate where plenty of land, water and feed would be available, and with Mr. Mollison’s support this was accepted in principle. Around Pusa, there were many British planters and also an indigo research centre Dalsing Sarai (near Pusa). Mr. Mollison’s visits to this mini British kingdom and his strong recommendations. In favour of Pusa as the most ideal place for the Bengal government project obviously caught the attention for the viceroy.

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Subject: Agricultural Extension × Author: Kumar, Manoj × Start date: 2006 ×
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    ThesisItemOpen Access
    Listening behaviour of farm radio programmes among the farmers of North Bihar
    (Dr. Rajendra Prasad Central Agricultural University, Pusa (Samastipur), 2016) Kumar, Manoj; Ansari, M. N.
    Mass media plays a very important role in the dissemination of farm information to the farmers. Among the different mass media, radio has advantage over the other mass media in terms of being handy, portable, easily accessible and cheap. Radio is widely used mass communication medium and has a great potentiality in dissemination of information. Radio caters to a large rural population which has no access to television and where there is no power supply. The farmers are listening agricultural programmes on radio and using this information for improving their crop practices. However, the farmers may have some problems and suggestions about the programmes run by radio which can be useful to media owners, planners, policy makers and extension agencies to plan and implement effective communication strategies to reach the farmers. Keeping all these facts in mind the present investigation entitled, “Listening behaviour of farm radio programmes among the farmers of North Bihar” has been undertaken with following specific objectives. • To assess the socio-economic and personal characteristics of radio listener farmers. • To analyze the programme preferences of radio listener farmers with reference to Kheti-Grihasthi and Chaupal. • To measure the attitude of radio listener farmers towards both the programmes. • To explore the constraints of non-listening of farm radio programmes and suggests the strategies for its betterment. The present study was carried out taking two blocks namely Pusa from Samastipur district and Muraul from Muzaffarpur district which are situated in North-East penetration range of Patna Akashvani Kendra. Out of these two blocks, two villages from each block namely Mahmada and Harpur from Pusa Block and Lautan and Iteha from Muraul Block were selected purposively. Fifteen radio listening farmers were taken from each of the selected villages. Thus, a total number of 60 farmers were constituted as the sample for the present study. The investigator collected data by using a pretested structured schedule employing personal interview technique. Thereafter, the data were classified, tabulated, statistically analysed and interpreted in light of the objective of the study, which led to following findings.  It is concluded based on the finding that majority of respondents belonged to middle age groups, literate experienced marginal farmers having farming occupation along with medium level of social participation, mass media exposure, scientific orientation in farming and had favorable attitude towards farm radio programmes.  It was found that maximum number of farmers had medium level (71.66 percent) of listening behaviour and this was followed by low level and high level of listening behavior.  During the study it was observed that there was positive and significant relationship between listening behavior and selected independent variables viz., age, education occupation, social participation, mass media exposure, scientific orientation and attitude while the variables and occupation was found non- significant  The study shown that majority of the radio listening respondents were satisfied with the present timing of the farm broadcast. Maximum percentage of respondents preferred the frequency of farm broadcast daily and duration of 45 minute respectively.  The relative preference of the listening farmers for different programmes on radio revealed that Agricultural programme, News and Pitara were the most preferred programmes, respectively in the study area.  The study indicated that the crop production and farm machinery were the most and least preferred areas respectively towards various subject matter concerned in the field of agriculture.  The interview with progressive farmers was the most preferred mode of presentation whereas straight talk was the least one as revealed by the selected respondents.  Majority of the radio listening farmers were strongly agreed attitude with the statements like “Radio programmes tell us latest technical know-how about improved farm technologies” where as majority of them were strongly disagreed with the statements like “Owning a radio is useless and wastage of money”.  During the study the maximum percentage of farmers (80 per cent) acknowledged their “engagement in domestic and other allied affairs” which was a major time constraint and” Do not like to listen with younger person” was most important social barriers for non-listening of the farm radio programme.  The most important economic constraints was “high rate of battery consumption “while in case of technological constraints, 61.66 percent of agreeing respondent express their views that due to “improper working of radio set” they often missed their programme.