EXPLOITING THE BENEFITS OF SOCIAL MEDIA IN AGRICULTURE

INTRODUCTION AND DEFINITION OF KEY WORDS

It includes the pre-planting operations, the planting or farming operations and the post farming activities (like processing of produce and marketing).

SOCIAL MEDIA has to do with websites and applications that help users to create and as well, share content or to participate in social networking.

As an internet-based or computer-mediated technology, Social media facilitates the creating and sharing of contents and various form of expressions through virtual networks.

THE DOMINANCE OF AGRICULTURAL INFORMATION EXCHANGE BY MODERN SOCIAL MEDIA

Man aims at involving in making new inventions to benefit him and make life easier. These innovations have cut so many facets of life and the society with each country having its own level of technological growth.

Back then in some societies, the dissemination of information would be done through some traditional means, but with the help of Modern Social Media, a larger number of people are reached faster.

As urbanization increases, the various forms of modern means of communication becomes material – Radio, Internet, Television, Newspaper, Magazines etc.

These types of media help bring in technology into social interaction.

THE BENEFITS OF SOCIAL MEDIA IN AGRICULTURE

Through (modern) Social Media, information gets to millions of people across the globe in milliseconds.

With increasing computer literacy, people will want to search for agriculture-related issues, like research, news, education etc. The Media is there to serve these needs.

Fewer individuals benefit when information is restricted to one-to-one conversation. Hence, Social Media becomes an asset in Agricultural Extension.

Similarly, it helps Agriculturalists by providing easy access to information and quicker way to interact with others.

In addition, it allows immediate dissemination of important emerging issues as well as the sharing of positive information among producers and consumers of agricultural products.

VARIOUS FORMS OF SOCIAL MEDIA

There are blogs, channels like YouTube, magazines, newspapers, websites etc that focus on gathering and exchanging of information related to Agriculture.

As an experienced blogger that I am, I manage a blog though agriculture is not my niche. A blog is basically a website published on the World Wide Web (WWW) consisting of posts with the most recent published posts appearing first. We bloggers love creating quality contents and generating traffic.

YouTube is a site for sharing videos where YouTube users upload and watch or download videos.

Facebook connects the world by making it a global village.

Twitter operates like a microblog where users post and read messages in texts formats.

These forms of media have variety of functions and relevance to the Agricultural sector or industry.

MARKETING OF AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTS AND PRODUCE

Most farmers (especially the young ones) have access to mobile phones and would love to be updated on the recent agricultural development.

There are also available agriculture-related mobile applications with ads (advertisements) installed in them. This will help to create awareness of the produce or products.

In conclusion, we have seen that Social Media is not a liability in Agriculture, rather an asset as it provides an opportunity for networking where people involved in agriculture can gather and share information.

NOTE: All the images used here are labeled for reuse, creative common licensed.

Image 1, Wikipedia CCO
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