assessment of extension workers and practice of agriculture extension principles

ASSESSMENT OF EXTENSION WORKERS AND PRACTICE OF AGRICULTURE EXTENSION PRINCIPLES

ABSTRACT

Despite the existence of relevant information to increase agricultural productivity, many farmers are yet to receive such information due to the limited number of extension workers, particularly in developing nations like Nigeria. Hence, this study was carried out to assess extension workers and the practice of extension principles in the Edo and Delta States.

A multistage sampling technique was adopted in randomly selecting 80 and 120 respondents from four local government areas, each with a high concentration of extension workers in Edo and Delta States, respectively. Data was analysed using frequency count, percentage, and mean, while hypotheses were tested using the Pearson correlation coefficient, T-test, and Chi-square test.

The results showed that the majority (46.3%) and 42.5%) were over 49–50 years of age and older; (52.5%) and (87.5%) were males; (83.8%) and (51.7%) were married; (62.5%) and (35.0%) were literate; and (57.5%) and (56.7%) had 10-15 years of working experience. Extension workers get information on their jobs through farm visits (x = 3.81 and 3.69), home visits (x = 3.71 and 2.86), and in the Edo and Delta States. Some of the constraints the respondents faced (x = 2.50) were financial problems, farmer culture, lack of motivation, transportation problems, and leadership problems in mostly Edo and fairly in the Delta States. However, the total pooled analysed result showed that respondents' sources of information and, in the discharge of their job, were not too faced with problems.

CHAPTER ONE

1.0INTRODUCTION

Information and communication have always mattered in agriculture. Communication may be defined as giving or exchanging information, options, and ideas by writing, speech, or visual means (Ganguly, 2006). Even since people have grown crops, raised livestock, and caught fish, they have sought information from one another. What is the most effective planting strategy on a steep slope? Where can I acquire a land title? Who is paying the highest price in the market? How can I participate in the government credit programme? Producers rarely find it easy to obtain answers to such questions (Ganguly, 2006). Up-to-date information allows the farmer to cope with and even benefit from these changes in weather patterns, soil conditions, and epidemics of pests and diseases, but providing such information can be challenging because of the highly localised nature of agriculture.

Agriculture is the most vital sector for information and communication technology intervention, especially since the majority of the population around the world relies on agriculture to live sustainably (Alexander 2009). Information and communication technology for development. Agriculture provides our most basic human needs, which are food, clothing, and shelter. Even since people have this natural way of thinking about how things can survive and make a living by harvesting crops used for food and fibres, they also make a living by harvesting crops used for food and poultry that produce animal products like wool, dairy, eggs, catfish, or any edible marine life for food or for sale, forestry, and logging to grow and harvest timber to build a shelter. With agriculture, people have learned and acquired knowledge through sharing information, but of course, this is not enough as there are also changes and developments in agriculture. Farmers should be able to take hold of updated information like price, production techniques, services, storage, processing, and the like. Evidently, updating information with the changes and developments in agriculture can be addressed by the effective use of information, communication, and technology. (Edward Elgar, 2004).

There is increasing evidence that infrastructure such as telecommunications helps to reduce poverty and provide opportunities to people in developing countries (Bertolini, 2005). Making information readily and cheaply available can enhance production, increase bargaining power and incomes, and ultimately lead to poverty reduction and economic development. Furthermore, making information readily and cheaply available can enhance production by enabling farmers to plant and harvest at appropriate times (weather information), improve the functioning of credit markets (by facilitating social capital as through increased communications farmers develop and gain trust and reputations), facilitate access to more efficient technologies (through finances obtained through increased credit ratings/worthiness), and in the long run, transform production processes through the more rapid and diffuse spread of technological innovations amongst a broader range of interacting agents – consumers (with different tastes and preferences leading to product differentiation or new product development), sellers (of inputs products and services), traders and processors (Eggleston et al., 2002).

Poor families in rural areas have limited or no access at all to information and communication technology. However, these people also need access to information, communication, and technology. Since this technology would help lessen their expenses on their resources like time, labour, energy, and physical resources, thus having a greater impact on their livelihoods and income, the lives of the rural poor could be alleviated through the application of information and communication technology by supplying information to inform the policies, institutions, and processes that affect their livelihood options. With the advent of ICT, it offers new opportunities to support the development of rural livelihoods. It strengthened production and increased market coordination, which are the main processes that can contribute to the future opportunities of the sector and create income for the people who depend on it. (Songan, 2004).

Farmers who have better access to information and communication have access to price information, access to agriculture information, access to national and international markets, increased production efficiency, and a conducive policy environment through an informed extension agent or worker who has a broader experience. Agriculture is facing new and severe challenges in its right with rising food prices that have pushed over 40 million people into poverty since 2010 (World Bank 2011). The growing global population, expected to hit a billion by 2050, has heightened the demand for food and placed pressure on already fragile resources. Feeding the population will require a 70% increase in food production (F.AO. 2009). Most importantly, the democratisation of information and science facilitated by ICT is also contributing to agriculture and rural development more broadly, using conventional information and communication tools. The majority of extension workers have attained adulthood, a stage that is very critical and at which human beings should be controlled, applying basic skills and knowledge.

Agricultural extension is a professional field of information systems aimed at educating people in their own context and life situation and acquiring knowledge and skills on how to effectively deal with such problems so as to improve their living conditions. (Ashimolowo 2002). The adopted agricultural extension system is the training and visit (T and V) agricultural extension system. It was developed for the World Bank by Benor (2002) and aids in improving rural farmer’s productivity through efficient agricultural extension service delivery in developing countries. The system was introduced into the Nigerian agricultural system in the mid-70s, when it was tried in the three enclaves of Gasau, Funtua, and Gombe. The recorded success of the trial led to the state-wide implementation of the extension system. Agriculturally, this is not enough, as there are also changes and developments in the agricultural development programme (ADP). To reach out to all the rural farmers across the country, each state is structured into zones, blocks, and cells. The extension personnel are grouped as follows: zonal manager, block extension supervisor/argent, and subject matter specialists. The extension agents are expected to cover between 8 and 10 cells where they relate directly with the farmers, reaching out to them with extension services at intervals of two research institutions. The base for the extension workers is the research institution where innovation and technical information to serve the farmers are generated. In Nigeria, there are eighteen research institutes, each of which has a specific research mandate (Lawal Adebowale, 2002).

One of the basic functions of agricultural extension is the dissemination of useful agricultural information from research to end-users. The mass media have been greatly used in delivering this information. However, the information boom of this century requires that worthwhile strategies be developed and utilised. In order to keep up with the information explosion trend, agricultural extension needs to intensify efforts to acquire the necessary information and communication technology facilities that are available. The categories of people who should have access to information technologies for proper direction are extension managers and supervisors. They know enough to influence decisions in their organisations. Waldron et al. (1997) stated that an extension programme manager is a person vested with formal authority over an organisation or one of its subunits. He or she has a status that leads to various interpersonal relationships, and from this comes access to information. Information enables the manager to devise strategies, make decisions, and implement action. VITA (1995) pointed out that modern communication techniques and facilities, which ensure uninterrupted access to a large amount of agricultural information, have become necessary to hide the distinction between urban and rural dwellers. These modern communication techniques are generally referred to as information technology (IT) facilities. Moll (1982), cited in Madu and Adeniran (2000), classified IT into two groups: high and low. Low technology includes equipment and machines like typewriters, offset printing machines, microform readers, projectors, staplers, paper cutters, perforators, catalogues, radios, telephones, and television sets.

High-information technology, on the other hand, consists of various means of obtaining or transferring information. Nzeakor (1991) declared that information technology could help rural communities leapfrog from peasant farming to modern agriculture.

Agricultural extension has a major role to play in the area of information and communication technology. This is because, as an educational outlet that is dynamic in its dissemination delivery system, a more cosmopolitan outlook is needed. This explains why modern technological gadgets are inevitable. Because we are in the information technology age, the extension needs to be in tune with the application of information technology to access and utilise the international network system. Ekemode (2000) observed that agriculture has moved through the various phases of development as society transforms into modernity. He therefore noted that the information technology era involves the application of satellite technology for obtaining agricultural information through the Internet.

Agricultural extension workers are trained personnel who are responsible for the transfer of information and technology to both rural and urban farmers’; they also play other roles like helping farmers and developing the practical application of research knowledge to farmer’s farms and families. But in the course of doing all these operations, agricultural extension principles must be appropriately applied. Agricultural extension principles are laws and rules discoursed by extension workers or researchers and proven by years of experience that now serve as guidelines for extension workers, as stated by Ashimilowo (2002). The principle focuses on the workers intending to empower themselves to be able to solve and meet the needs of respondents.

The principles are:

The extension work must be based on the needs and interests of the people.

Extension work should be based on the knowledge, skills, beliefs, and values of the people.

Extension encourages people to take action and work out their solutions to their problems, rather than receiving a ready-made solution.

An extension programme should be flexible so that necessary changes can be made whenever needed to meet the varying conditions and needs of the people.

Extension work should be based on the full utilisation of local leadership.

Extension should be a cooperative action involving activities in which people cooperate to pursue a common cause.

The extension should be based on constraint evaluation; the effectiveness of the work is measured in terms of the changes brought in knowledge, skills, and attitudes and the adoption of the change in the behaviour of the people.

In conclusion, communication bridges the gap between extension agents and agriculture, thereby making it easier to assess agricultural technology, and there is also a gap between extension agents and workers and the basic information needed.

Problem Statement

Throughout the developing world, it is a known fact that farmers already have a lot of knowledge about their environment and their farming system (Ahmed 1974). Extension can bring them knowledge and information that they do not have. Cause of damage to particular crops, general principles of pest control, or the way manure and compost are broken down to provide plant nutrients (Ahmed 1974). The application of such knowledge often means that the farmer has to acquire new skills of various kinds; the transfer of this knowledge and skill to the farmer and their families is an important extension activity, and the extension agent must prepare himself thoroughly (Foster 1962). He must find out which skills or areas of knowledge are lacking among the farmers in his area.

This study sought to examine extension workers' personnel characteristics, channels frequently used in sourcing and disseminating agricultural extension principles, and possible strategies for practicing extension principles.

It also cuts across the level of application of extension principles and examines the level of motivation for the use of extension principles by the respondent. In addition, accessing the major constraint in the use of agricultural extension principles.

This research tends to provide answers to the following:

The questions now are:

What are the personnel characteristics of extension workers in the Edo and Delta States?

What? are the channels through which respondents frequently use sourcing and disseminating agricultural extension principles in their jobs?

What do the respondents perceive as important improvement strategies for the practice of agricultural extension principles?

What are the motivational factors for the use of agricultural extension principles by the respondent?

To what extent do extension workers apply extension principles in their daily operations?

What are the constraints on the use of agricultural extension principles by the respondent?

1.2 Objectives of the Study

The broad objective of this study is to assess extension workers’ sources and practices of agricultural extension principles in Edo and Delta States, Nigeria.

The specific objectives were to:

examine the personnel characteristics of extension workers in Edo and Delta State;

identify channels that respondents frequently use in sourcing and application of agricultural extension principles on their job;

ascertain respondent's perceived importance and improvement strategies for practices of agricultural extension principles;

access the extent to which extension workers apply extension principles in their daily operations in the study area;

identify motivational factors for respondents' use of the agricultural extension principle; and

identify constraints in the use of agricultural extension principles by the respondent.

1.3 Hypothesis of the Study

There is no significant relationship between extension workers' characteristics and the channels frequently used in sourcing and disseminating agricultural extension principles.

There is no significant relationship between extension workers' characteristics and perceived improvement strategies for the practice of agricultural extension principles.

There is no significant relationship between the personal characteristics of extension workers and the extent to which extension workers apply extension principles in their daily operations.

There is no significant relationship between the extent to which extension workers apply extension principles and the channels respondents frequently use in sourcing and disseminating agricultural extension principles.

There is a significant relationship between constraints in the use of agricultural extension principles and the channels respondents frequently use in sourcing and disseminating agricultural extension principles.

There is no significant relationship between constraints in the use of extension principles and the personal characteristics of extension workers.

There is no significant relationship between motivational factors for the use of agricultural extension principles and the constraints of the use of agricultural extension principles.

There is no significant relationship between improvement strategies for the practice of extension principles and motivational factors for the use of agricultural extension principles.

1.4 Justification of the Study

Over the years, various studies have shown that there is an existing gap between available knowledge of improved technology and actual practice (Odefadehan 205). The extension workers are responsible for the dissemination of information about these improved technologies to farmers to bridge the gap, therefore, their role is very essential, to the improved technology before they disseminate that information to the farmers, to find ways to bridge this existing gap in improved technology and the actual practice, this study sought to investigate the information needs of the extension workers, identify the present and intended sources of information, determine the social economic characteristic of the respondent, determine the effectiveness of these information sources presently used and the constraints encountered by the respondent in the practice of extension principles.

This study is of present-day relevance to encourage extension workers and identify little lapses in the sources of improved technology and practice of extension principles because useful information brings productivity forward in agriculture. Essentially, this study will hopefully add to the available literature, be useful for academic research, and be very relevant to researchers in related topics.

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