Appropriate printed materials in agricultural technology transfer: Case study of Kasikorn magazines and Technology Chawban magazines

Objectives of the study were to investigate 1) general information of subscribers to Kasikorn and Technology Chawban Magazines; 2) subscribers' utilization frequency of these publications; 3) readers' objective of utilization for these magazines; and 4) constraints and recommendations of subscribers to these publications. Two hundred and ninety subscribers to Kasikorn and Technology Chawban Magazines were selected and interviewed by questionaire as described by Krejcie and Morgan (1970). Percentage, arithmetic means and Chi-square were main statistical analysis for this investigation. The results of this study disclosed that general information for subscribers to Kasikorn and Technology Chawban Magazines could be summarized as follow: Majority of subscribers to those magazines lived in the country and some subscribers to Kasikorn or Technology Chawban were subscriber to both magazines. The largest group of subscriber to both magazines belonged to one to five-year length of membership. They were male and their ages were between 41 and 50 years. They had higher compulsory education and the main occupation was government official. Their incomes were higher than 30,000 baht per month and they did not associate with any organizations or associations. There were no significant difference between sex, age, education, agriculture experience, main occupation, income, and association membership with the needed contents of the magazines. Frequency of magazines' utilization by subscribers is not regular. Higher knowledge and adoption of approved practices were the main objectives of subscribers to Kasikorn and Technology Chawban magazines. Delivery time, explanation of photographs, simplication of technical term, proper length of articles, better photographs and grouping the similar content on the same page, impractical and absolete technologies were constraints and needed to be improved. Recommendations from subscribers to these magazines were 1.) to increase information on innovative technologies for crop production from domestic and overseas; 2.) to increase public relation information; 3.) to improve delivery time; 4.) to encourage and give opportunity for subscribers to present their articles in the magazines; 5.) to simplify technical articles for better understanding; and 6.) to establish information exchange service center among subscribers.