Among the mass media, informal education, radio and television have a specific value. Due to their vast use, the media are among the best educational and cultural instruments.
The radio is a powerful communication tool. It has proved to be the most effective media in promoting agriculture and development in rural areas, particularly as a tool for the delivery of quick information; agricultural education intervention programs are more fruitful if they are conveyed through the radio. Such programs result in heightened farmer awareness.
Considering the effective role of radio in improving awareness of farmers; KMBL formulated a series of Radio Programs for farmers in coordination with National Agriculture Research Council whereby eight programs on eight different topics was aired every Thursday via Radio Pakistan. These programs were designed for various areas as per major crop cultivation in that particular area. The Experts talked on the certain crops and answered to the queries of the callers.
Very useful crop information was given by the experts including info about new seed varieties, use of fertilizers, crop diseases, prevention, and efficient water saving through drip irrigation and increased crop yield through seed drill mechanism.
Two programs were dedicated to Vegetable / Kitchen Gardening based on the fact that if every person has an organic garden for their daily needs, the problem of food insecurity would be completely eradicated from our country. Also organically grown food is grown in soil that uses natural fertilizer rather than urea, is not sprayed with pesticide or water contaminated with chemicals. Considering the importance of this topic, more programs on Kitchen Gardening will be sponsored by KMBL in 2020.
These programs also disseminated information about KMBL Agri products and how the interested farmers can reach out to the Bank using the 24/7 Helpline number.