ABSTRACT
The overall purpose of the
study was to determine the perception of extension staff of manpower and
institutional factors that constrain agricultural extension services in Benue
State Agricultural and Rural Development Authority (BNARDA). The study was guided
by three research purposes, namely: to describe the respondents’ socio-economic
characteristics; to determine the perception of the extension staff on the
number of extension staff as a manpower constrain; and to examine the extension
staff perception of agricultural extension policies as institutional
constraint. The study was carried out in Benue State, one of the North-central
states in Nigeria. The population of the study comprised the BNARDA extension
staff at the head quarters, the zonal managers of agricultural zones in the
state, and the BNARDA field extension staff assigned to extension services in
the state. The multi-stage sampling technique was used to select 2 state
headquarters, 2 zones, 18 workers from the 2 zones, 36 blocks and 72 village
extension agents. This resulted to the total of 117 respondents at different
levels in BNARDA extension service as the sample for the study. A set of
structured questionnaire was used to elicit information from the respondents.
Percentage, mean and standard deviation statistics were used to analyse the
data collected. The results of the study showed that majority of the BNARDA
extension agents are male (64.2%) as against the 36.8% who are women; majority
of BNARDA extension agents are in their middle age with an average mean of 43.5
years; majority of the BNARDA extension agents (58.1%) possess university
degree and/or Higher Diploma (B.Sc/B.Ed/HND); as much as 42.7% of the BNRADA
staff have been into extension service for 21 years and above, with the mean of
20.5 years indicating that BNARDA staff are well experienced (in terms of the
number of years in service) in their duty; and as much as 40.2% of the
respondents have worked as BNARDA extension workers for 21 years and above. The
mean number of years as BNARDA extension staff by the respondents is 19.5
years. This means that the BNARDA staff are well informed about the activities
of BNARDA over many years and are therefore in good positions to provide the
relevant information for any improvement of BNARDA. The findings from the study
also revealed that BNARDA has been unable to deliver some aspects of its
extension service objectives because it is lacking the necessary number of
extension workers (manpower) to carry out these services. In spite of this, the
study revealed also that technical knowledge, skills and experiences of
recruited extension staff do not constitute constraints to BNARDA’s service
delivery. With regard to the influence of structures and implementation of
agricultural extension policies as institutional factors that can influence
extension service delivery, the findings of the study showed that they
constitute part of the institutional constraints that negatively influence the
extension service delivery offered by BNARDA staff. The findings also revealed
that there has been consistent lack of remuneration and incentives for BNARDA
staff and that this has negatively influenced the extension service delivery
offered by the BNARDA staff and indeed the purpose for the establishment of
BNARDA as an agricultural project aimed at improving the conditions of the
people in Benue State. Based on the major findings of this study, it was
recommended among other things, that as long as the objectives of agricultural
programmes are still considered to be of some importance, the number of BNARDA
extension workers helping in the realization of the objectives of agricultural
projects need to be increased.
CHAPTER
ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1
Background of the Study
Public
agricultural extension organizations in most countries have the task of
providing a two way flow of improved technology and information between
research and users, primarily farmers. They operate in an institutional
environment that includes other public and private organizations active in
agriculture (Peterson, 1998).
In Nigeria,
as elsewhere, the ministry based extension service was found to be unable to
effectively address agricultural and rural development problems (Ladele, 2008).
This led to the establishment of Agricultural Development Projects (ADP) which
marked the departure of the Nigerian extension system from ministry based
extension to project-based extension system. The ADP was sponsored by the World
Bank in collaboration with the states and federal governments.
Almost all
the states in the country actively implemented statewide ADPs until World Bank
finally withdrew funding at the expiry of the project. Development activities
of ADPs declined considerably, though at varying degrees across the states, as
government could not meet the financial demand of these projects . The earlier
experience in the ADPs operation was highly promising that it was thought that
most of the traditional problems would have been alleviated. However, the spirit
of the early ADP era was not sustained, coupled with the fact that the Training
and Visit extension approach had its associated problems. This implied that
there are yet a myriad of problems of agricultural extension begging for
appropriation attention (Ladele, 2008).
Benue
State Agricultural and
Rural Development Authority
(BNARDA) was established in
1986 as one
of the first
generation seven Multi-State
Agricultural Development Projects (MSADP) in Nigeria. It was inaugurated
as a parastatal under Edit No. 7 of 1985. Its operations
were organised into three core sub-programmes namely: Agriculture, Engineering,
and Commercial Services. There are also four support sub-programmes namely:
Administration, Finance, Human Resource Development, and Planning, Monitoring
and Evaluation. In order to make the impact of BNARDA felt in the whole state,
it is operated on the basis of three agro-development zones of the state,
namely, Central Zone with headquarters at Otukpo, Eastern Zone with
headquarters at Adikpo, and Northern Zone with its headquarters located at
Gboko.
The broad
goal of BNARDA is to promote and sustain crop and food production and raise the
incomes and standard of living of farmers in Benue State. The overall objectives
are:
(a) To
assist the small scale farmers increase food production and raise the level of
incomes and living standards.
(b) To
focus on agricultural potentials in effectively utilizing intensive programmes
of On-Farm Adaptive research.
(c) To
develop an effective unified Training and Visit (T&V) agricultural
extension system in the state.
(d) To
establish and operate a workable input procurement and distribution system
capable of serving the farmers at the right time.
(e) To
provide rural infrastructures for sustained development.
The
agency was co-financed in the following percentages in accordance with the loan agreement (BNARDA, 1996a).....
================================================================
Item Type: Project Material | Attribute: 68 pages | Chapters: 1-5
Format: MS Word | Price: N3,000 | Delivery: Within 30Mins.
================================================================
No comments:
Post a Comment