INTRODUCTION
It I believed that the establishment of agricultural
extension system is to help farmers increase their agricultural production. And it is also believed that if
farmers increase their production, both the farmers themselves and government
will benefit from it. For instance, the
farm families’ welfare will be better, the agro-allied industries will
adequately meet their raw material demands and the nations foreign exchange
earning will be boosted.
The backbone of all agricultural extension endeavour
is, therefore, the transfer of agricultural information and technologies to
enhance the productive capacity of the farmers. Agricultural extension involves systematic and
organized interaction with farmers with the aim of increasing their agricultural
production and stimulating development.
THE MEANING OF AGRICULTURAL EXTENSION.
Different authors and scholars at different levels
have viewed agricultural extension in various ways. For example, Bardsly (1982)
cited by Nwuzor 2009, viewed guttural extension as a service or system which
assists farm people through educational procedures in improving farming methods
and techniques, increasing production efficiency and income, bettering their
levels of living and lifting social and educational lives of rural people. It
uses information obtained and assembled form research studies based on
experience, trail and demonstration for the purpose of extending knowledge to
the rural people. The use of farm visit, result and method demonstration, group
meetings and group discussion, mass media, posters and audio visual aid are
very effective means of extending knowledge to the rural populace.
Agricultural extensions defined by the food and
agricultural organization (FAO, 1992) as informal out of school educational
services for training and influencing farmers to adopt improved practices in
crop and livestock productions, management, conservation and marketing.
Madukwe (1995), cited by Nwuzor 2009, defined agricultural
extension as a voluntary out of
school educational Programmes for adults
of relevant content derived from researches
in the physical, biological and
social science synthesized into a body of concept, principles and procedures.
It employees teaching and learning principles that affect changes in the
farmers generally carried out in an atmosphere of mutual trust and respect
between agricultural extension agents and their clientele.
Nwuzor (2006) observed extension education as an
informal out of school system of education designed to help rural people to
satisfy their needs, interests and desires.
IMPORTANCE OF AGRICULTURAL EXTENSION
Extension is an essential pillar for research and
development. However, unfortunately, a somewhat unhealthy perception of
extension prevails in many developing countries, caused by a weak extension
lobby, faulty initial organizational set- up, an inlienent lack of
trust in extension by most of the research organizations, and traditionally
poor career development condition in the profession of extension.
Agricultural research agendas remain largely academic
unless extension workers provide input in terms of the identified and as yet
unsolved field problems of the farmers. Research focuses on the technical
aspects for generating useful technologies. While extension focuses on the
acceptance and adoption of those technologies by users. Applied research
institutions need strong extension services to work in a field problems
oriented mode, and the extension services need the back stopping of strong
applied agricultural research institutions to effectively serve the farming
communities. Countries like the united states of America, Canada, Australia and
Denmark, which have very advanced agriculture, have always enjoyed strong
extension services, first public, and now public and /or private.
EXTENSION AN ESSENTIAL PILLAR FOR AGRICULTURAL RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT
It is logical that policy maker first be convinced of
the key role extension in national development before giving serious through to
reforming and modernizing the present national agricultural extension services.
This is important because unfortunately a somewhat unhealthy perception of
extension prevails, caused by a weak extension lobby inmost developing
countries, faulty initial organizational set –up an inherent lack of trust in
extension by most of the research organizations, and traditionally poor career
development conditions in the profession of extension
Since the start of structural adjustment progrmmes in
developing countries many years ago, extension services have been a prime
target of downsizing. In some cases, the donors concerned have guided the
governments in this direction, while in other cases strong lobbies in certain
agricultural discipline –notably agricultural research and economy have challenged the usefulness
of extension.
Extension work is a very difficult l task in less
developed countries. It is not carried
out from air-conditioned offices or laboratories by formally dressed persons,
but mostly in the field under server whether and logistic conditions with
minimum facilities. The extension mission of interacting with mostly
illiterate and poor rural people with
the aim of changing their behaviour positively is indeed a formidable
task when compared to working with plants and animals in the comfort of research stations.
This is indeed a misfortune for the developing
countries. Extension has been and still is treated as an inferior subject by
most agricultural researchers, in spite of evidence that if extension is weak,
some otherwise excellent technologies never reach the farmers. During 1960s,
extension played a significant role in ringing about the green revolution
through the strategic introduction and
promotion of high yielding wheat and rice varieties and the use of farm inputs
as recommended by researchers.
The common belief among researchers that, if they
develop a good technology the farmers
will automatically adopt it therefore, there is no need for extension is not sound. If this were true, hundreds of good
technologies developed by researchers, as pointed out in a major international conference held in Addis Ababa
in 1995, in which Sasakawa foundation was also involved, would not be sitting
on shelves to the dismay of good scientists.
The good technologies, in order to be considered by the farmers for
possible adoption, must first travel the distance between relevant research
institutes and the farmers fields. Then
they should be introduced to the farmers in non-technical language and the
advantages of the technology over traditional practices must be demonstrated in
a convincing manner, such as through field demonstration. Next, the necessary
ingredients for trying the new technology, such as cost and any risk factors
will have to be explained. Later, various adult education methods and
participatory decision – making approaches need to be followed in order to
encourage discussion on the information provided on the new technology in order
to assess both positive and negative issues. Assuming that some progressive
farmers are willing to try the new technology, arrangements will have to be
made for other farmers to benefit from this limited “sample adoption”
opportunity the regular monitoring of the trail of the technology, including
discussion with the progressive farmers, will be required for any t4rouble
shooting and eventually to assess the overall performance of the new technology
under in situ field conditions. Good or
bad results and possible reasons for them must be conveyed to the relevant researchers
who recommended the particular technology. If the benefits outweigh the
problems, the technology will have a better chance of being adopted by other farmers otherwise,
it will have to be categorized as an inappropriate technology and dropped from
the list of extension recommendations.
In the past, agricultural researcher institutes in a
number of developing countries created small extension units as a part of their organizational
structure for publicizing their
technologies mostly through publications.
While the publications were a source of satisfaction for the researchers, such
publicity rarely went beyond the confines of the institutes. Such units were
later disbanded. Several research researcher outreach projects were also tried,
within the framework of which research trails were conducted in farmers’
fields. This approach gave more positive results, but only I those places where
both extension workers and farmers were actively involved in the entire
process. Still, the practice was no substitute for available extension
services.
Countries like the united states of
America, Canada, Australia and Denmark, which have very advanced agriculture,
have always enjoyed strong extension services first public, and now public
and/or private. Their extension services may look very different from those of
developing countries, but so are their farms (mostly commercial) and the number
of farmers (mostly a low percentage of country’s population). None of these
very developed countries has ever considered the discipline of extension as
inferior to other agricultural disciplines at the time of resource allocation
Major donors like the world bank have observed an
almost constant decline in resource allocation to agriculture sector during the
past decade, but lately the trend has visibly reveres. There are many reasons
for this, but the major one is the resolve of rich countries to fight hunger
and poverty in less developed countries, as these two menaces have led to a variety of serious problems
with far- reaching effects. The eradication of extreme poverty and hunger,
promotion of gender equity and the empowerment a of women, combating HIV/AIDS,
Malaria and other diseases, and ensuring environmental
a sustainability, are among the declared United Nations Millennium Development
Goals, which are closely related to the extension function. In addition global
emphasis continues on the need for sustainable rural and agricultural
development. These facts have not only renewed interest in the potential power
of extension, but have also triggered a worldwide movement for reforming and
modernizing the traditional extension systems to enable them to play the
anticipated role successfully. The new extension services have to be
knowledgeable, will equipped in terms of resources, armed with a broad
technical mandate beyond technology transfer, and truly efficient irrespective
of its modality ie whether singular or pluralistic, public or private, or a
mixture of the two. Any investment made in reforming and modernizing extension
is bound to return to the country in both the short and long term. On the other
hand, the absence of an effective extension service in any developing country
at this crucial stage of global development will in all probability leave its
farmers significantly uneducated, its agriculture sector underdeveloped and its
rural life impoverished.
AGRICULTURAL EXTENSION AS A PROFESSION
This is about the general concept of agricultural
extension. Agricultural extensions as a
profession connote that agricultural extension is a type of job that needs
special training or skills especially one that needs a high level of education.
NEED FOR FARMERS EDUCATION
Increased agricultural productivity depends primarily
upon the acceptance of cultural and technological changes at the rural farm
level. Peasant farmers can achieve higher farm yields only if they adopt
recommended scientific farming techniques in place of their traditional
practices. But new practices are often complicated and based on complex scientific
knowledge and therefore difficult for illiterate farmers to understands to
adopt and successfully use improved farming techniques, rural farmers must
understand them and to do so, they require effective teaching by the
agricultural extension service. The government agency or ministry responsible
for promoting the adoption of new
scientific farming practices through educational procedures.
Education
is basic to improve living conditions schooling or literacy have been widely
re-organized and accepted as a means of increasing knowledge about new
opportunities in the community .
Education does not only create a favourable mental atmosphere for the
acceptance of new ideas but it positively changes the overall attitude of the
individual towards live and progress. Thus, we cannot achieve agricultural
development or increased agricultural productivity on the rural farm level,
except through the provision of basic agricultural education, particularly the
informal type .also, the adoption of new ideas, techniques and innovations to
improve farming or rural life has been
found to depend largely on educational,
economic and socio-cultural standard of the people.
PROFESSIONS
RELATED TO AGRICULTURAL EXTENSION
Agricultural extension organizations try to change farmers’
behaviour through education and communication. Many other professions also try
to change peoples behaviour through one or other of these means. Agricultural
extension often has worked in isolation form these other professions, whereas
much could be learned from their experience and research, even though they face
somewhat different problems. It can also be in farmers best interest if
extension organizations cooperate with
these professions. Therefore I will discuss briefly some of these
professions.
HEALTH NUTRITION AND FAMILY PLANNING
Health
and nutrition education stimulate people to behave in such a ways that many
diseases can be prevented
their task is somewhat more difficult than that of agricultural
extension because the relationship
between cause and effect is more difficult to detect, health problems being
related to death are emotionally highly loaded, and usually less staff are a major hazard for many farm families
EDUCATION
People are
showing more interest in the diffusion of educational innovations because they
are convinced that an effective educational system is important for the future of their country some of the
innovations introduced in schools can be modified for use in extension
education. It has been recognized increasingly that education is not confined
to youth. Hence continuing education is regarded as a necessary process. In
agriculture, we can learn much from the adult education techniques used in industry.
For example, adult educators place considerable emphasis on training in
interpersonal relations .this is also an important area for agriculture because
of the increasing contact between farmers and the outside world
GOVERNMENT INFORMATION SERVICES
Government information services inform the public
about government policies and explain these policies. They also give citizens a
means of influencing government policies, such as a zoning in the area in which
they live
HOME ECONOMICS
Home economics extension work in
the United States is closely related to agricultural extension because of the
many close its between farm and home some less industrialized countries have
followed the American example by giving female extension agents home economics
rather than agricultural tasks, van den
and Hawkins, 2002). This might not be a
good decision in a country where most of the agricultural work is done by
women.
Also,
home economics is important for agricultural development in these countries.
For example, the time needed for fetching water and collecting firewood cannot
be spent on agricultural production.
CHANGE OF OCCUPATION
Society is changing so rapidly that many of us will
have to change occupation several times during our life. Hence career guidance
has become more important guidance officer’s pay more attention to counseling
techniques because it is important for people to get a clear picture of their
own goals before making a decision. It is clear that many farmers also will
have to change their occupation
CONCLUSION
Based on the fact that the economy of most developing
countries like Nigeria is based on agriculture and over 70 percent of the population in many developing
countries live in the rural areas, there is need that agricultural extension is
properly put in place.
Various governments in the developing countries are
therefore paying particular attention to the development and transformation of
rural sector so that it can make significant contribution to the overall
economic growth while fulfilling the traditional functions of providing
adequate food, materials for the industrial sectors, and supplying labour to
the developing industries. The need for structural transformation of the rural
section calls for, among other things, the provision of rural education, adequate
information and guidance of the rural populace through extension activities.
In order to make rural communities’ part of the
dynamic social order where rapid change is characterized, an extension service
amongst the rural communities is needed. In addition to a network of efficient
information system, extension activities will be needed to help and advice the
farmers to organize their production and marketing activities.
REFERENCE
Nwuzor, B.A (2009) Agricultural Extension: Its Contributions to
Agricultural Development in Nigeria. Snaap Press Nigeria
Ltd Pp 3-5,148
Food
and Agriculture Organization (2005) Modernizing National
Agricultural Extension System. Published by Management
Service, Information
Division
A.W
Vanden Ban and A.S Hawkins (2002)
Agricultural Extension
Second Edition
Blackwell Science Ltd pp33-35