and Integrated Pest Management - part - usaid

Pictest Procedurc
COMMUNICATING IPCTO RICE FARMERS
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POSTERS Five groups of about 30 rice farmers each were asked to pretest two
posters in individual sessions. At the start of the pretest, the interviewer first
explained the purpose of the posters and the importance of getting user reactions.
The poster was then shown to the respondent with the text covered to focus his
attention on the visual. After about three minutes, the respondent wats asked
what the visual was trying to convey. After noting the farmer's response, the
interviewer removed the cover, showed tile entire poster ard asked the remaining
questions.
lIGIHLIGHTS During the pretest, farmers had varied reactions and suggestions,
e.g., one female respondent mistook the interviewers to be sales agents of a
chemical company selling posters to advertise chemicals for rice pests. Most of
tile farmers inter\ it wed exhibited negative reactions to the colors used in the
posters. Overall i,'re was a preference for realistic colors such as green for a
rice plant, blue or Urown for farmers' shirts and light blue for the sky. Other
farmers suggested that the background include rice paddies and mountains to
depict a typical rice farm, diseased spots of the rice plant be emphasized, and
chemical bottles have labls.
AUDIO CASSETTE DRAMA Unlike the posters, the audio cassette drama
involved a group test. After a brief inlroduction, the drama was played on an
audio cassette recorder and the farmers listened to it as a group. Individual
interviews with farmers were conducted immediately after the drama was played.
UTILIZATION OF PRETEST RESULTS
Results of the pretest led to the following: improvement of prototype
material, selection of promising material, and elimination of difficult-tounderstand
material. For the posters, the following revisions were suggested:
I. Emphasize diagnosis and control.
2. Clarify messages and make colors realistic.
3. Do not use sprayers and chemical bottles to convey the message of pest
control because farmers connect it with the message of chemical companies,
which states: "to be sure, one needs to spray pesticides."
Consequently, the 10 prototype posters were reduced to 5. Results of the
pretest of these revised posters indicated that only three out of the five performed
well on the comprehensibility test. These three posters were then finalized and
printed.
CAMPAIGN IMPLEMENTATION
After the final production of the two audio cassette dramas, the mediated
communication campaign began in the first week of December 1986. Farmers
listened to the dramas in groups of 9 to 15 at the neighborhood store, basketball