INTRODUCTION:

In the 21st century, social media has burgeoned into one of the most used channels of communication in the society. As social media becomes well recognised for its potential as a social communication channel, recent years have witnessed an increased interest of using social media in agriculture^1-5.

Hoffman⁴ said social media use in agriculture has become “more of a business responsibility than a luxury”. Through the use of social media tools, farmers, ranchers, and other agriculturalists are making a difference⁴ because social media gives agriculturalists an opportunity to share their stories⁵. Farmers and ranchers alike can send messages or create posts in forums like Facebook or Twitter, which can instantly create awareness about agricultural topics and issues.

“The value of that kind of Twitter or Facebook message cannot be quantified, but it’s the type of reassurance, accountability, and responsiveness, consumers are seeking and that they expect”⁴.

In recent years, several agricultural organizations or individuals involved in agriculture have created Facebook groups as a means of promoting their messages or causes as they relate to certain agricultural issues. The content of these groups vary greatly. Some are very limited in activity, while others are very active, including daily posts, encouraging member participation, asking for feedback, and posting news and other information, which would be of interest to the members.

Because social media tools are emerging communication technologies, the use of these tools has not been fully examined in regard to their contribution to agricultural communications. There also exists a need to identify best practices for using social media as public relations communication tools in agricultural advocacy. Facebook has quickly become the social networking site of choice by farmers due to its remarkable adoption rates of Facebook in agriculture⁶. Market reform and improvement of marketing system ought to be an integral part of policy and strategy for agriculture development⁷. New techniques and innovation can change the status of a farmer from a compassionate ground to a winning status⁸. Economic reforms and the opening of Indian agriculture to the global market over the past two decades have increased costs, while reducing yields and profits for many farmers⁹. Joint involvement in decision making was observed in agricultural activities even though women perform more in agricultural related activities than men¹⁰.

Awareness to increase knowledge of the farmers towards latest technology through different information sources is important to minimize the adoption gap so that their level of technical knowledge may be increased¹¹. In case of adoption of recommended rice production technology level of adoptions were found important with respect to trained farmers¹². The structured teaching programme was effective in improving the knowledge of Brucellosis and its prevention among cattle farmers in selected rural areas at Mangalore taluk¹³. The primary information of MNREGA in respect of supply of financial gain, gender equality and employment generation are vital to understand the perceptions of farmers¹⁴. The profitable satisfaction of customer wants can be accomplished through farmer’s education programme¹⁵. Out of many variables, age, educational qualification and source of information were found to be significant with the knowledge¹⁶. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to understand “the potential of emerging Facebook technologies, message formats, and strategies in realizing a citizenry capable of making agriculture-related informed decisions”. With this in mind, this paper aims to investigate the use of Facebook closed group by farmers in Trithala block, Palakkad, India. It is also to analyse the interaction pattern among the farmers using the Facebook closed group pages.

REVIEW OF LITERATURE:

Social media in agriculture:

Social media are digital networks that are used to share and discuss user generated information - opinion, video, audio, and multimedia¹⁷. Merriam-Webster¹⁸ defines social media as forms of electronic communication through which users can create online communities to share information, ideas, personal messages and other content. The definition of Ahlqvist¹⁹is focused on three basic components – content, communities and Web 2.0 – and operationalizes social media as the interaction of people and also to content creation, exchange and commenting in virtual communities and networks. Socialmedia is not about what each one of us does or says, but about what we do or say together, worldwide, to communicate in all directions at any time by any possible digital means²⁰. Social media is basically digital technologies facilitating communication of user generated content through constant interaction^21,22. Accessibility of social media through mobile phones and the scope of mass-personal and mass-self communication makes it a popular platform among the masses to share ideas and increase linkability and content sharing across multiple platforms.

Web 2.0 technologies or social media encompass online communities, social networking and user generated content. Jackson²³ also emphasizes the same point by acknowledging the use of social media to “create, publish, share, collaborate, discuss and network through a wide range of new mainly digital formats and platforms”. Social media encompasses collaboratively produced or shared media content and network communities²⁴. Ashley²⁵ defines Web 2.0 as the emerging interactive web services and applications that have radically altered the way, the online information users share, create, collaborate and publish information. Anttiroiko²⁶define Web 2.0 as a general term for new technologies, applications and services that enable users to network and personalize websites. Kangas²⁷ views social media as a combination of content, communities and Web 2.0 technologies. Hart²⁸ states that RSS Feeds automatically push information to users when it is updated and enhance visibility and access to information by providing links to articles.

Social media in Indian agriculture:

Research, extension and farmer’s efforts are all contributed significantly from 50 million tonnes in 1950-51 to land mark achievement of an estimated production of 259.32 million tonnes of food production in 2011-12²⁹. But estimates indicated that 60 per cent of farmers do not access any source of information for advanced agricultural technologies resulting in huge adoption gap³⁰. At least to provide one village extension personnel for 800-1000 farm families, the requirement of field level extension personnel is estimated to be about 1300000-1500000, against which the present availability is only about 100000 personnel³¹. In this existing scenario, it is expected that integration of ICTs in agricultural extension will provide needed impetus to agricultural sector and ICTs can complement the traditional extension system for “Knowledge Resource” delivery to the millions of the farmers³². Among ICTs, impressive penetration of mobile phones in many of the developing countries changing the agricultural communication process and mobile phones have made personal communications readily accessible, for the first time, to women and men, poor and prosperous, rural and urban dwellers in developing as well as in industrial countries³³.

ICTs and applications have a great potential for agricultural extension and their best part is the power of integration. They can be used interactively and their utility can be increased by many a times. Mobile phones are becoming the most important tool for accessing internet and when the power of mobiles and social media can be integrated, the result in extension can prove wonders. Human resource in extension is the best and the most valuable, but its synergy with information and communication tools can prove to be more fruitful and more efficient in extracting the full potential of all the resources for development of the farming community and that is the ultimate goal of all development initiatives in agriculture. Graber³⁴ conducted a quantitative study to explore Texas agricultural producer’s use and opinions of media channels. She found that a majority of her participants were not involved in social media, but a large number of the participants were considering the future use of social media. Moore³⁵ conducted a qualitative study of agricultural organization’s use of blogs as a communication tool and found that the organizations used blogs to reach publics with messages about current events, consumer information, industry news, travel, and to educate various publics about production agriculture. A qualitative study examining the social media use of Florida Farm Bureau Young Farmers and Ranchers³⁶ found that social media should be used in conjunction with existing communication channels.

Facebook:

Facebook was launched in February 2004 by its founder Mark Zuckerberg. Despite the presence of other strong competitors such as MySpace, Twitter, and LinkedIn, Facebook increased its users in a rapid pace and it is now one of the biggest social networking sites in United States of America³⁷. According to The Associated Press³⁸, Facebook has reached 1.01 billion people with 584 million active users each day and 604 million users using Facebook from a mobile device each month. On the other hand, a case study³⁹ on Facebook usage indicated that the total number of Facebook users in Malaysia has grown tremendously to approximately 10.1 million in one year. Facebook is beneficial for users in maintaining a large, diffuse network of friends, and to enhance their social capital, which is defined as the benefit one receives from one’s relationship with others⁴⁰, as cited in McCorkindale⁴¹. Many studies involving Facebook discuss how uses and gratifications theory can be applied. Bumgarner⁴² found college students use Facebook to follow their friends’ profiles and to keepup with what their friends were doing. Joinson⁴³ found Facebook users develop a variety of uses and gratifications from social networking sites, including traditional content gratification, communication, and surveillance. Raacke and Bonds-Raacke⁴⁴ evaluated the impact that social networking sites, particularly MySpace and Facebook, have on students. The majority of students were using these social networking sites to build new relationships and maintain existing relationships. Results also indicated several gratifications were met including making new friendships, keeping in contact with old friends, or using Facebook as a marketing or promotional tool⁴⁴.

Facebook use in agriculture:

Graybill⁴⁵ conducted a qualitative study of the use of Facebook as a communication tool in agricultural-related social movements. She concluded that Facebook was an effective tool for promotion of the social movements represented in the study. Gibson⁴⁶ conducted a communications audit of select GO TEXAN member’s online presence. The study found that a majority of the members were using websites, but fewer members were using social media tools. Gibson⁴⁶ also found that Facebook, blogs and Twitter were the most popular social media tools being used among the select GO TEXAN members. The study also concluded that agriculturalists are not utilizing social media tools to their full potential.

Using social networking sites, such as Facebook, helps create social capital^47,48. It is important to note that the social movements explored in this study did not exist before Facebook. The social networking site provided the motivated individuals with an avenue to share opinions, stories, and information. Facebook was selected by the participants because they were familiar with it as a communications tool, noticed that other organizations were successful using it to reach audience members, and it was free.

RESEARCH QUESTIONS (RQ):

This paper examines the use of Facebook in the lives of farmers of a Trithala block, Palakkad, Kerala, India. In particular, the paper investigates the realities of farmer’s Facebook closed group activity and the role of Facebook in farmer’s experience in the farming. The remainder of the paper will consider the following two research questions: (RQ1) What aspects of farmer’s interactions via Facebook closed group page? And (RQ2) What evidence of Facebook use in farmer’s interactions for their farming?

METHODS:
The two research questions are explored through a qualitative study of the content of Facebook closed group page of farmers who are cultivating paddy in Trithala block, Palakkad, Kerala, India for the Summer 2018. The study covers three Facebook closed group pages created by the farmers in the three selected panchayats of Trithala block (n=160), who are cultivating paddy. The period of data collection is from 26 December 2017 to 26 February 2018 (the beginning of puncha crop to the middle of cultivation period for two months). All the three closed group pages were created by a farmer representative of the respective padasekharams and have invited all the farmers of the block, together with an Agricultural Assistant and the Agricultural Officer to join the group. The first group consists of farmers of Trithala panchayat with an Agricultural Assistant and the Agricultural Officer (n=54) and the second group consists of farmers of Anakkara panchayat with an Agricultural Assistant (n=56). The third group consists of farmers of Kappur panchayat with an Agricultural Assistant and the Agricultural Officer (n=55). One of the author is the invited member for all the three groups, therefore, the data was collected directly from the closed group page postings as the author has access to the three closed group discussions.

In terms of data analysis, the data was analysed using the constant comparison technique⁴⁹, as cited in Selwyn⁵⁰. Firstly, the author examines all the exchanges between the farmers and the Agricultural Officer from the Facebook group postings. The author then read again the group postings to gain an overall sense of the data. Finally, the data were coded in categories and relate these categories to the two research questions outlined in this study.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION:

For the two months of discussion on Facebook closed group pages, a total of 68 postings was found in the first group and only 32 postings for the second group. Most of the postings were made by the farmer representatives and the Agricultural Officer. For example in the first group, the Agricultural Officer has posted 11 times while the farmer representative has posted 22 times and other farmers have contributed 35 postings. For the second group which has fewer postings, most of the postings were made by the Agricultural Assistant (13 postings), while the farmer representative who created this group has posted only once and farmers have posted twice throughout these two months. A total of 51 postings was found in the third group and most of the postings were made by the farmer representatives and the Agricultural Officer. The Agricultural Officer has posted 8 times while the farmer representative has posted 17 times and other farmers have contributed 26 postings. When analysing the farming-related interactions from the three Facebook closed group postings, four main themes emerged from the data: (1) announcements and updates about farming-related matters, (2) queries about cultivation and farming related matters, (3) exchanges of support and humour, and (4) exchanges of files and information. In order to protect the privacy of the farmers, all names mentioned in the analysis were made anonymous and are labelled as Farmer Representative A, Farmer S, Farmer G and so on. These themes are discussed as follows.

Announcements and updates:

Farmers mainly use Facebook group discussion to post announcements and updates about farming-related matters. For the first group, a total of 27 postings were announcements and updates related to the farming and departmental matters, while only 10 announcements were made for the second group and 20 announcements for the third group.

There were reminders and announcements on departmental matters, changes of input distribution venue, land, credit, input and marketing content and drying, processing and procurement venue.

Farmer Representative A (first closed group) wrote on 26 December 2017, seen by all 54 members with 13 ‘likes’ but with no comment:

Announcement #1 (Sorry, couldn't resist: P) Hey everyone, about the Department Seed. Agricultural Officer mentioned that the Agricultural Assistant will be collecting the beneficiary contribution and the varieties they'll need to order from me tomorrow. So a reminder for those who haven't paid to bring it to the Krishi Bhavan for tomorrow's meeting. As well as those who have not written the variety name on the paper, write it about Varieties:

Farmer Representative A (first closed group) wrote on 27 December 2017, seen by all 54 members with 19 ‘likes’ and two comments:

Oh, and this is for the Pest and disease training on Tuesday. SCB, Trithala auditorium is in the main building (There's a Hall in the first floor. So don't get yourself confused, like how I did :P). So to get there, use the Lift in the main building and head to Floor 1. The auditorium should be on your left. A. excitedly points to image*...

Farmer Representative A (first closed group) wrote on 12 January 2018, seen by all 54 members with 13 ‘likes’ and only with one comment:

A reminder for tomorrow's training session. Credits to A.A for reminding me!......

Farmer J (first closed group) wrote on 24 January 2018, seen by 48 members with 23 ‘likes’ and 36 comments:

[URGENT] Hello everybody! Last minute announcement here! Apparently Mr Trainer can’t make it for trg tmrw, so there is no training! It will be postponed to next week! Please help me pass this message to everybody! THANKS!

Farmer M. (first closed group) wrote on 6 February 2018, seen by 50 members with nine ‘likes’ and four comments:

Agricultural Officer has informed me that he will be checking the crop insurance premium payment papers on next week. Please take note!

As this theme illustrates, farmers would turn to Facebook to seek for clarification especially on the first Facebook group. Most of the postings were made by the farmer representative because he plays the role of relaying information about meeting times or locations, where to access materials and sending reminders on behalf of the Agricultural Officer. This analysis shows that Facebook is a useful means of last minute information-seeking as in many instances, information concerned the practical logistics of attending the meetings were announced and posted by the farmer representative. Similar findings were reported earlier in the field of education⁵⁰.

On the other hand, the content analysis of the second Facebook group page indicated that majority of posts were contributed by the Agricultural Assistant rather than the farmers. All 10 postings of announcement and updates about the course and assessments in the group page were posted by the Lecturer. The result demonstrates very little evidence of farmer engagement and only the Agricultural Assistant is establishing the discussion with the farmers. This confirms the assertion⁵¹ that posting on Facebook page requires a substantial amount of ‘seeding’ by the Agricultural Assistant. Below shows the postings of the Agricultural Assistant on the second group.

The Agricultural Assistant (second closed group) wrote on 14 January 2018, seen by 50 members with three ‘likes’ and only one comment.

The Agricultural Assistant (second closed group) wrote on 15 January 2018, seen by 49 members with nine ‘likes’ and three comments: hey guys, just wanna double confirm. What’s our attire for tomorrow's training? Thanks!

As the theme illustrates, farmers would turn to Facebook to seek for clarification on the third Facebook group. Most of the postings were made by the farmer representative himself as in first group.

Farmer Representative B (third closed group) wrote on 4 January 2018, seen by 53 members with 10 ‘likes’ and with 3 comments.

Farmer Representative B (third closed group) wrote on 7 January 2018, seen by all 53 members with 14 ‘likes’ and two comments.

Farmer Representative B (third closed group) wrote on 12 February 2018, seen by all 53 members with 10 ‘likes’ and only with one comment.

Farmer N (third closed group) wrote on 24 February 2018, seen by 36 members with 17 ‘likes’ and 27 comments.

Farmer O (third closed group) wrote on 26 February 2018, seen by 38 members with 7 ‘likes’ and 3 comments.

Example of Event News Release:

The analysis of the first and third group pages shows that farmers turn to Facebook to ask questions and seek clarification from their peers in regard to cultivation assessment. This result was similar with the observation⁵² that the nature of posts on Facebook is different in content as discussion about assignments have increased on the Facebook group. However, in the second group, the Agricultural Assistant shared samples of assignments on the group with 90% of farmers seen the posts and files, very few ‘likes’ with no comment. This shows that farmers of the second group were very passive and performed the activity of ‘lurkers’ who log in to read posts but do not offer their opinions⁵³.

Exchanges of support and humor:

Another category of Facebook exchange centred around the seeking of moral support as well as sharing of entertainment and humour among the farmers. From the first and third group pages, we found a total of 23 postings sharing birthday wishes, support for cultivation, promotions of food and beverages as well as postings of pictures of farmer’s activities and jokes. However, on the second group page, there is no evidence found for this exchange.

Farmer (first closed group) wrote on 15 February 2018, seen by all 54 members with 16 ‘likes’ and six comments:

HAPPY BIRTHDAY to MR. FANTASTIC: K.!

Many, Many Happy Returns of the Day bro...

By The Way, I hope the rest of the class joins me in covering him in whipped cream!

Farmer M (first closed group) wrote on 29 January 2018, seen by 50 members with 17 ‘likes’ but only one comment:

Good luck for Corp Commtmr guys!

Farmer Representative K (first closed group) wrote on 19 February 2018, seen by 50 members with 22 ‘likes’ and four comments:

Good luck for the training tomorrow people! May we all achieve the 'Self-capacity' phase!

The above analysis concurs with the research⁵⁰ that there were exchanges which were humorous in nature and this type of exchange was common throughout farmer’s non cultivation-related use of Facebook.

On the other hand, we found a “situation where farmers sought to distance themselves from roles which had to be enacted but with which they did not necessarily wish to be identified by others” similar to Selwyn⁵⁰ in the second group. This is because none of the farmers exchange any support or pictures of their activities. They only view the postings made by the Agricultural Assistant and by a few farmers on announcements and updates as well as queries about assignments.

Exchanges of files and information:

The last theme demonstrates the exchange of files and information. A total of seven files and information were uploaded on the first group, five on the third group and only two were found on the second group. For the first group, the Agricultural Officer has uploaded three files about cultivation-related matters, while the farmer representative has uploaded two files about assessments. Two other farmers namely Farmer D and Farmer M also uploaded files about the cultivation content. Farmer D posted an article on 1 February 2018. Fifty members have seen the posting with 14 ‘likes’ and only one farmer commented. Student M posted additional information about the cultivation content on 7 January 2018 with all 54 members seeing the post with 10 ‘likes’ and two comments.

For the second group page, two files were posted by the Agricultural Assistant about a farmer trip and assignment. The first file was uploaded on 28 January 2018 with 46 farmers seeing the post with seven ‘likes’ and four comments. Another file was uploaded on 30 January 2018 about a sample of news coverage with 46 farmers saw the post and only one ‘like’ was found. Drawing from the analysis above, we agree with Staines and Lauchs⁵¹ that although farmers rarely posted on the Facebook group page, Facebook was very useful for easing communications between farmers and technical staff, especially for information sharing and engagement with cultivation-related materials.

For the third group, the Agricultural Officer has uploaded two files about cultivation-related matters, while the farmer representative has uploaded one file about assessment. One farmer also uploaded another file about the cultivation content.

CONCLUSION:
Our study presents two main findings of the realities of farmer’s Facebook closed group activity and the role of Facebook in farmer’s experience in farming. Firstly, there are four themes emerged from the qualitative content analysis of Facebook closed group pages which are announcements and updates, queries about assignments and cultivation-related matters, sharing of files as well as exchanges of other matters such as birthday wishes, advertising of products, pictures of farmers having fun, supports given to each other for upcoming inter cultural operations, and some random chat; and secondly most farmers were passive users as they only view the postings in the close group page, but not actively commenting or liking the post. This observation of Facebook group pages concur with prior literature^{50, 54-57}that both farmers and technical staff are using this technology for agricultural purposes.

Farmers have used Facebook as a platform to make announcement as well as to seek clarification on cultivation related matters while the technical staff has utilised this platform for communication with the farmers beyond the field.

Nevertheless, comments of the posts were only given when the topic of discussion was about assessments such as dates of input application, chemical focus and format as well as about announcement on cancellation of application of inputs. On the other hand, ‘likes’ were given on discussion about cultivation matters such as change of class venue or cancellation of classes as well as for exchanges of support and humours. Thus, the data presented in this study shows that farmers were not actively engaging with the technical staff and peers throughout the nine weeks of study because the interaction pattern of the Facebook groups is mainly based around cultivation-related matters.

Although Facebook has been acknowledged by scholars as the world’s largest social networking site which is increasingly used as a channel for communication and collaboration among farmers in agriculture⁵², the farmers in this study are simply using Facebook group as a broadcast medium for transmitting information and announcements on cultivation-related matters such as changes of venue for classes, queries about assignments and replacement classes. To conclude, in view of the above, we would suggest that Facebook acts as a communication channel for making announcement and only serve as a supplementary tool for teaching and learning; yet for effective use of Facebook in the farming, positive attitude of the farmers to actively participate in the discussion is crucial.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT:

The authors are grateful to the authorities of Krishi Bhavans of Trithala block and Facebook group admins for the facilities.

CONFLICT OF INTEREST:

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

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Received on 20.09.2018 Modified on 07.10.2018

Res. J. Humanities and Social Sciences. 2018; 9(4): 841-848.

DOI: 10.5958/2321-5828.2018.00140.7