Abstract:

The potential importance of opinion leaders in the informal interpersonal communication is emphasised because of their unique capacity to pass flow of information on innovations to the farmers. The gender dimension was included to ascertain if there are gender differences in opinion leadership in farming. The study was based on the premise that peasant farmers in Uganda, particularly the women farmers do not have adequate access to extension services due to amongst others, the wide change agent to client ratio. In view of the problems faced by the farmers and the opportunities offered by opinion leaders the importance of opinion leadership justified investigation. The main objective of the study was to explore the occurrence and importance of opinion leadership among both male and female farmers in farming. This was achieved through a research study which involved a survey of households in three villages of Buligobe, Kapeke and Luwunga in Mukono district of Uganda. Interviews were conducted with the assistance of extension agents from the Department of Agriculture of Mukono district. The occurrence and importance of opinion leaders, also referred to as fellow farmers, as a source of information among the rural farmers was deduced through different types of assessments. The first being by rank order assessment which was used to compare the different sources of information that are used by the farmers. This method was extended further to investigate the differences in information source rating within the different farming enterprises, rating by the different genders and ranking in the villages. The second method of assessment involved comparing the frequency of use of the three most important information sources that were identified namely the fellow farmers, radio and extensions agents for importance. In the subsequent investigations, further emphasis was placed in establishing the following important aspects related to opinion leadership, which are: the reliability of opinion leader identification, the scope opinion leader influence and the important characteristics of the opinion leaders. The study has shown that the fellow farmer is relatively more important than the radio and extension agents. The pattern of ranking the information sources by the male and female farmer is similar, the only difference is that the female farmers rated the fellow farmers relatively more important than the male farmers. The radio was found to be more important than the fellow farmers in terms of frequency of usage, a factor which was attributed to the routine availability of the weekly farmer's programs broadcast over the radio. The male farmers were found to make more frequent use of all the information source than the female farmers. The results also show a widespread existence and use of opinion leaders among both males and females in the study area. These opinion leaders were found to be a clearly identifiable individuals who have not been confused with specialists. Males were found to feature more prominently than females as opinion leaders and they were found to consult opinion leaders more frequently than the female farmers. It was also found that the common tendency among the farmers is to consult an opinion leader on one enterprise. The respondents were found to more frequently consult the opinion leaders who were perceived to be prominent, friendly, very accessible and those who live within close proximity to the farmers. Kinship relation was also found to be an important determinant for more frequent consultation. Both male and female farmers were found to consult the opinion leaders more frequently in enterprises that are important to them. The farmers in the study area were found to get information through opinion leaders who are not similar to them. The fact that opinion leaders play such important roles in various agricultural enterprises have important implications for extension program planning and future research. Recognition of this role and formulation of strategies to put it in good use is recommended. It is suggested that this can be achieved by designing integrated communication strategies focused on the opinion leaders, the radio and extension agents and it is suggested that commensurate extension capacity building is necessary to support an opinion leader led extension strategy. Further recommendations were made to extend the current research to other areas of Uganda. Some areas for further research in opinion leadership was suggested.