Effectiveness among farmers of a farmer's primer on growing rice in two Philippine dialects

The Tagalog and Hiligaynon editions of A Farmer's Primer on Growing Rice, which is published in 30 languages, were evaluated for their effectiveness in transferring rice technology information to 84 farmers in Cavite and Negros Occidental, two provinces in the Philippines. Relationships among farmers' socio demographic characteristics, communication variables, and the Primer's effectiveness in terms of knowledge gain were also tested. A 73-item test was used to measure initial knowledge level. The farmers were then given copies of the Primer in Tagalog (Cavite farmers) or Hiligaynon (Negros farmers). A post-test was given 45 d later to measure knowledge gain. On both tests, farmers who answered less than 50% of the test questions correctly were defined as having "low" levels of knowledge and those with 50% or more correct answers as having "high" knowledge. Only 4% of the farmers had high knowledge in the pretest, but 46% had high scores after reading the book. The t-test also showed that, although farmers who finished the book and those who did not were not significantly different in initial rice knowledge, the difference in post-test scores was highly significant. The farmers' knowledge gain concerning fertilizer was highest. In the pretest, only 15% knew the meaning of "24-12-12" on a fertilizer sack, but half knew after the treatment. Of 14 independent variables tested, only 4 were significantly related to knowledge gain: previous participation in rice training courses, land tenure, number of years in rice farming, and exposure to newspapers. The Cavite and Negros farmers generally matched well in most variables. Farmers evaluated the Primer's design, packaging, and message content favorably but suggested improvements to increase its effectiveness, such as the deletion or substitution of abstractions and symbols that they found confusing or hard to understand. IRRI [International Rice Research Inst., Los Banos, Laguna, Philippines] is using the findings of this study to make forthcoming publications, designed on the Primer concept, more effective.