Abstract

This research examines the communication strategies that the ministry of agriculture uses in communicating new technologies. lt specifically looked at how the introduction of treadle pumps was communicated to the farmers. The study explores different communication strategies that the ministry used; these include interpersonal communication, print and radio. There were several organizations that took part in the sensitization of this innovation in corroboration with the ministry. Some of them were; the Agricultural communication Branch (ACB) and The Story Workshop (SWET). ACB as a communication hand of the ministry of agriculture used both interpersonal and radio communication in order to sell out the idea of treadle pump use to the farmers. On the other hand SWET which is a Media Organisation used both radio programs and radio drama in trying to expose the innovation. Much as it is a fact that different media were used to communicate the message about treadle pumps, it was the intention of this paper to examine to what effect were these used and perhaps see what went wrong for the technology not to be received by a lot of farmers in Malawi, despite being communicated to the farmers on the importance of using it. In trying to achieve this objective, an investigation was made in several areas. At institution level, the research looked at the ministry’s policy on communication and at communication level, the paper looked at communication strategies employed. What the investigation reveals is that the communication tools that are used do not really look into what farmers need as a result they do not deliver fully. Most of the farmers in Malawi are illiterate, making them unprivileged of the messages being created; as a result they end up not adopting new technologies coming. However, if interpersonal communication is to be used in its full understanding, a lot of farmers would be benefiting. To this effect, the study proposes various suggestions. The research employed qualitative methods to extract data. Focus group discussion, structured interviews, case studies, and study of district level documents.

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School	: School of Humanities and Social Sciences
Issued Date	: 2008

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