Research article

Effectiveness of Agricultural Extension Methods Used in the Adoption of Rice Production Technologies by Farmers in Fufore Local Government Area of Adamawa State, Nigeria

^*1 Gaya A.S., ²Jalo J.N. and  ³ Hammanjoda B.

¹Department of Forestry Technology, Adamawa State College of Agriculture P.M.B. 2088 Ganye, Adamawa State, Nigeria

²Department of Agricultural Extension and Management, Adamawa State College of Agriculture P.M.B 2088 Ganye, Adamawa State, Nigeria

³Department of Animal Health and Production Technology, Adamawa State College of Agriculture P.M.B 2088 Ganye, Adamawa State, Nigeria

*Corresponding Author E-mail: augustinegaya@gmail.com

Accepted 18 July 2016

Abstract

The study determined the effectiveness of agricultural extension methods used in the adoption of recommended rice production technologies by farmers in Fufore Local Government Area of Adamawa State, Nigeria. The specific objectives were; to described the socio-economic characteristics of the respondents, identify the available extension methods used, examine the effectiveness of extension methods used for recommended rice production technologies and to identify the major problems associated with various extension methods used by extension agents on rice production technologies adoption by rice farmers in the study area. Data were collected from one hundred and fifty (150) rice farmers in four villages of the two selected districts through a well structured and and unstructured questionnaires. Both descriptive and inferential statistics were used for data analysis. The study revealed that majority of the respondents 80(26.7%) are within the age of 30-49 years, 110(73.3%) are married. Majority of the respondents 59(39.3%) have access to one form of educational background or the other with their farm sizes between 1- 4 hectares respectively, having there major source of farm information from radio programmes. The results revealed that marital status and educational level of the respondents were statistically significant at 1% and 5% level respectively, while correlation result (r =0.456) shows a significant relationship between recommended technologies adopted and extension methods used by farmers at 1% level. The major problems encountered by farmers were; irregular visits by extension agents, lateness of information flows, lack of adequate trained extension agents, there localities outside network coverage among others. The study recommends among others the establishment of community radio station in the study area, the need to employ and train more extension agents and to revived agricultural extension services in the study area to meet its primary objectives.

Keywords: Extension methods, Adoption, Agriculture, Technologies, Modernization, Rice