ABSTRACT The study assessed the use of rural radio as agricultural information dissemination tool among farmers in Dekina Local Government Area of Kogi State. The specific objectives were to: describe the socio-economic characteristics of the respondents, identify rural and agricultural programmes normally aired on radio, find out the level of patronage of the programmes, identify the convenience of the time of presentation to the target audience, identify the necessity for rural radio among the rural farmers, identify the problems militating against the listening audience of the rural radio. A 3 – stage sampling technique was used to randomly select 150 respondents for this study, using a well structured questionnaire. The data collected were analyzed using descriptive statistics. Results of the finding shows that majority of the respondents listened more to their traditional programmes on daily basis. The major constraints to the respondent’s listenership of the radio programmes were language barrier and lack of feedback amongst others. It was recommended that agricultural and rural development information be coded in the form of traditional/local music or incorporated into the traditional music to arouse the interests of the target audience and move to take actions and that research messages should be translated into the simplest language possible and translated to the prevalent languages. Manuscript profile

his study investigated the farmers’ feedback on Agricultural Development Project’s (ADP’s) performance. The study was carried out in Kogi State, Nigeria. Interview schedules were used to collect data from 160 contact farmers and 80 field extension workers who were randomly selected using multistage random sampling techniques. The data collected were subjected to both descriptive and non-parametric statistics. Result shows that both extension agents and farmers highly rated information on credit use (x = 2.63), and both also highly rated credits (x = 2.58) in terms of material technology needs. However, Mann Withney U statistic analysis shows that there was significant (P < 0.05) difference between the perception of farmers and extension agent on the level of information needs of contact farmers implying that the extensionists did know the priority needs of farmers. Farmers claimed that the area of extension messages that were considered effective includes: improved seed/seedlings (x = 2.11), pesticides/insecticides application (x = 2.27), use of herbicides (x = 2.24) and markets/market prices (x = 2.25). This study therefore recommends that effort should be made by extension service providers to improve on areas of farmers identified perceived information/material needs such as credit use, tractor hiring, fertilizer supply, pesticides and improved breeds of chicken while training and better remuneration package be put in place to enhance extension workers performance/productivity. Manuscript profile