International Journal of Library Science

p-ISSN: 2168-488X    e-ISSN: 2168-4901

2015;  4(2): 28-34

doi:10.5923/j.library.20150402.02

The Role of Extension Workers in Akis Based Irrigation Farming in Katsina State

Lawal Iro Sani1, Oladokun O.2, Kalusopa T.2

1Department of Library and Information Science, Umaru Musa Yaradua University, Katsina State, Nigeria

2Department of Library and Information Studies, University of Botswana

Correspondence to: Lawal Iro Sani, Department of Library and Information Science, Umaru Musa Yaradua University, Katsina State, Nigeria.

Email:

Copyright © 2015 Scientific & Academic Publishing. All Rights Reserved.

Abstract

The objective of this paper is to establish the relationship that exists between irrigation farmers and extension workers through agricultural knowledge and support systems. To find out the type of information needs of irrigation farmers. To also find out whether these public extension workers are adequate to meet the growing number of irrigation farmers in the study area. The paper will also find out whether the E.W was exposed to ICT. The paper will also examine the challenges faced by the E.W, in disseminating agricultural knowledge and information to the irrigation farmers. The findings from the paper revealed the following problems; such as the inadequacy of the extension workers, lack of exposure to new technologies and also the dearth of an extensive literature. Seventy Two (72) extension workers were selected through census sampling techniques. Focus group interview and questionnaire were used in eliciting information from them. SPSS package was used to analysed the data, also cross tabulation, inferential statistics and descriptive statistics was used to explain the data collected.

Keywords: Extension workers, Irrigation farmers, ICT, Dissemination

Cite this paper: Lawal Iro Sani, Oladokun O., Kalusopa T., The Role of Extension Workers in Akis Based Irrigation Farming in Katsina State, International Journal of Library Science, Vol. 4 No. 2, 2015, pp. 28-34. doi: 10.5923/j.library.20150402.02.

1. Introduction

In the early years after the Nigerian independence, agricultural development and cooperation was purely based on the transfer of innovation and technologies. These are innovations for the farmers which may be regarded as new ideas, method, practice, or techniques which influences achievement, sustained increase in farm productivity and income. These innovations may be grouped into technical and social innovations. Usually, agricultural innovations fall into the technical innovations. This innovation ranges from simple modified farm practices to completely new technology.
According to Gwyne and Jones (2010) developing an understanding of extension sources and channels used by the clients to obtain information is a pre-requisite for efficient educational programme because messages that go unheard or unseen cannot lead to change. This study is aimed at identifying the role of extension workers in providing extension services to irrigation farmers in katsina State, Nigeria through AKIS.
Katsina State was created on 23rd September, 1987 out of the former Kaduna State. It was bordered to the South by Kaduna State, to the North by Niger republic, to the West by Zamfara State, and to the East by Jigawa and Kano State. Katsina State lies between Latitudes 1100749N, and 13002257N and longitude between 605203E and 900240E. It covers an area of about 23,983 square kilometers with a projected population of 5, 8015 million (Makama, 2012). Until the beginning of the 20th century; the people of Katsina State had been living a relative stable agricultural life. To achieve a relative agricultural production and productivity, increase wealth index of the State and the country in general and provide employment opportunities to the people; there is the need to advise and assist farmers. Hence, the introduction of extension services department. The whole idea was to ensure that knowledge has been and had to be spread far and wide among the farming communities through a central extension organization (Abdu, 2003).
Agencies established for the development of agriculture include Katsina State Agricultural Development Authority (KTARDA) European Economic Community (EEC/KTSG) International Fund Agricultural Development (IFAD), media centers and media Stations in local government and State respectively, which have the overall agricultural extension mandate in the State. According to Abdu (2003:20) “These and other agencies has since inception in 1989 been playing a major role in providing specialized agricultural extension programmes which are directly responsible for grassroots extension services and dissemination of information to farmers.
Nigeria has elaborate agricultural research and extension systems. A wealth of research result, therefore exists in the agricultural research system in Nigeria. However, these results are not made fully available to the end users, the farmers. The dearth of the extension workers, which was put at 1-1600 is a problem which hinders the development and effective service delivery by the extension workers. Other silent but prominent problems include among others: Poor policies from government, lack of transport to reach out to the end users, administrative bottle necks, lack of good roads etc.

2. Scope of the Study

The scope of the study covered only the extension workers of the three irrigation projects in Katsina Zone, that is; Ajiwa, Jibia and Zobe. The limitation of the study is that, it is focused on only three irrigation projects in Katsina State.
The role of extension workers is so enormous, so much so that it cannot be overemphasised. This is because they served as bridge builders between government policy makers, researchers and farmers. The irrigation farming also is a very factor that contributes toward food sufficiency, employment and wealth creation. It is therefore necessary to know the role the extension workers could play toward achieving food sufficiency, employment generation and wealth creation with a view to contributing towards the development of the State and the nation at large.

3. Literature Review

Agricultural extension organizations in developing countries were mirrored toward the administrative traditions of the former colonial powers (Gwyne and Jones, 2010). Like other agricultural support services, extension services were geared towards producing and marketing export commodities. Accordingly, crop-oriented extension programs were common. The scope of extension programs expanded in the 1950s as the newly independent states of Asia and Africa sought to increase food production and to spread the benefits of improved farming techniques more widely.
Nigeria’s first involvement in a conscious and purposeful planned agricultural extension was at the time of British colonization. The colonial masters introduced extension and extension work according to Gwyne and Jones (2010:122) “In an effort to encourage farmers to increase agricultural production, both for home consumption and for export and also to impose on farmer’s government rules and regulations”. With independence and subsequent developments, various governments introduced changes in the nature of extension work, but the objective have remained the same, that of bridging the gap between farmers, researchers and policy makers (Gwyne and Jones, 2010).
Agricultural extension, according to Gwyn and Jones (2010), is a significant social innovation. It is an important force in agricultural change which has been created and recreated, adapted and developed over the centuries. Van-den-Ban (2009) reports that in several countries, for example, India, extension work mainly places attention on the adoption of innovations, while in many former communist countries, much attention is on investment and marketing decisions.
This possibly suggests that extension delivery by extension workers helps farmers to adopt new innovations that affect farming. Also Van-den-Ban (2009) pointed out that in many government extension organizations the choice of the extension messages is based either on the goals of the government policy or on research findings which are considered to be important to farmers. Interestingly, extension work is not only about production technologies but also about government rules and regulations and subsidy schemes.
A study conducted by Hosseini, Mehrad and Gholamreza (2009:1479) in Iran points out that: “Agricultural extension worker has an important role in promoting the adoption of new technologies and innovations. The trend from supply driven extension to demand driven extension requires a new approach”.
They further posit that extension workers have a key role in brokering between providers of communication technologies or services and their potential customers. To do justice to this role, extension workers must be able to examine the appropriateness of various ICTs and their accessibility in both rural and remote areas.
This suggests that in addition to their role in bridging the gap of information dissemination, extension workers can play the role of suggesting the best ICT tool to use within a particular farming community. Evenson and Germano (2001), in their analysis of the role of extension workers in Kenya, posit that a national system of agricultural extension can play an important role in increasing farm yields but its effect on yields is not uniform across farmers. This indicates that because of individual differences between farmers, not all the farmers will adopt the innovations provided to them by the extension workers. In another study on ICT in the provision of agricultural information to small scale farmers in Harare, Chisita (2010) explored the many roles of extension workers where she noted that extension workers play a critical role in providing agricultural professional services, farmer training, advisory and technical support to farmers.
A study conducted on the perception of trust and employees’ attitudes in Nigeria by Ladebo (2006:410) stressed the role of extension workers in agriculture that, The extension workers in the developing nations are expected to promote market oriented agriculture, assist the poor farmers to cope with vulnerability and help in poverty reduction in the rural areas. This suggests that, the role of extension workers is not only that of disseminating information generated to farmers but they are also expected to assist in how to sell their produce, buy seedlings and control of pests, all in an effort to fight food insecurity in the country.
Agricultural research output constitutes an important knowledge base that should be made available to farmers through sources whose attributes are acceptable to them. Thus, the identification of the different sources of information, information services being used by users (farmers) is needed to bring out the relevance of these sources and services as well as the relevance assigned to the different types of sources and services.
In conclusion, one could say, the intellectual level and orientation of the extension workers must elicit the confidence of farmers, with whom they interact. Extension workers need to understand adequately the environment they are serving before they start to disseminate the agricultural information they have acquired. The essence of environmental scanning according to Jorosi (2008) is in the acquisition and use of information about events, trends and relationship or organizational external environment, the knowledge of which would assist the management in planning the organizations future course of action.
An efficient, dedicated, adequately trained and well oriented extension worker is essential for maintaining a healthy, productive channel of communication and change between research output and the farming community. This is because agricultural information output is varied, extensive, and therefore needs to be generated and disseminated to specific farmers based on their differentiated needs.

4. Methodology

The qualitative and quantitative approach was used for this study known as a mixed method to analyze the role of the extension workers in this changing scenario. The questionnaire and focus group interview was administered in this study. The questionnaire and the focus group interview, ask such questions as, socio-economic data of the respondents, information need of the extension workers, adequacy of information, usefulness and access to the information, and finally adequacy and perceived problems encountered by the extension workers in disseminating the information. The sample size of the respondents is 72 based on census sampling. It should be noted that most of the extension workers working in these irrigation fields are employed by the Local government where the scheme is located supported by very few from the State government.

5. Results and Discussion

A total of 72 questionnaires were distributed to the extension workers in the three irrigation projects in Katsina State. All the 72 were successfully retrieved back from the respondent group. Focus group interview was also conducted to some of the extension workers to elicit for more information from them.

5.1. Socio-economic Variables of the Respondents

In this section, the socio-economic characteristics of the respondent usually assist in getting a clear understanding of their behaviors. The socio-economic factor also provides a limit towards explaining their disposition that could improve their output. Such characteristics include age, sex, educational status, experience, and marital status among others.
The results from this study reveal that all the respondents were males. They are within the age bracket of 36-45 and 46-54 years of age. The respondents were also married. Marriage and age is a very essential tool in facilitating households’ activities in a typical society like the Hausa (Ekong, 2003). On the educational qualifications of the respondents, 41, (56.9%), indicated having a higher certificate of NCE/ND, 25, (34.7) indicate they have a secondary school certificate. 2, (2.8%) indicate they have only primary school leaving certificate, while 4 (5.6%) indicate having BSc in agriculture. This implies that the educational qualification of the respondents is part of the function of their intellectual development, and their information literacy will enhance their chances of interaction and ability to disseminate information effectively.

5.2. Types of Information Obtained and Its Usefulness

Here the respondent groups were asked questions as it relates to the type of information they obtained from research institutes and universities. One of the functions of the extension worker in any extension service organization is to teach farmers to determine their own information needs and provides solutions to their problem (Atala, 1984). The Figure below explains the type of information the respondents obtained and disseminate to the irrigation farmers.
Figure 1. Types of Information Obtained and Disseminated
From the Figure above, 110 (56.9%) indicates they obtain scientific information from researchers. This shows that, their clientele’s need scientific information from them. This type of information deals with information on weed control, hybrid seeds, water management, weather, climate, drought, new crop varieties, etc. While 31 (43.1%) indicate they always obtain and disseminate commercial information. Commercial information which usually emanates from agro-allied industries, farmers, whole sellers and middle men. It also includes, among others, marketing of produce, where to buy fertilizers, where to buy seedlings, how to obtain loans and credits, etc. These results corroborate Ogbonna (2010) study, which attests that 98% of fish farmers in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria preferred to have scientific information. Ammani, et al., (2010) and Bello and Obinne (2012) also opined that farmer’s information needs revolve round scientific and commercial information.
On the usefulness of the information obtained and disseminated, the respondents indicate that the information is useful to the irrigation farmers. This is because majority of the irrigation farmers does frequently request for that information from them. According to Demiryurek (2010), the score value for the frequency of contact and the weighted values of the usefulness of the information source were used to calculate the total information score as:
TIS = number of contact x usefulness of information
TISij = FCij x IUij
Where FC is the number of contacts with information sources for the I-th irrigation farming and IU is the usefulness of information for the i-th irrigation farming.
The weights were given to each component according to the extent of information contact. The weight of 0 was given to no contact, 1 for once a year, 2 for two or three times a year, 4 for four or five times a year, 12 for once a month, 30 for two or three times a month, 52 for once a week, 130 for two or three times a week and 365 for information contacts once a day. Similarly, the degree of usefulness of information sources was also weighted. The weight of 0 was given to not useful at all, 0.25 for little useful, 0.50 for somewhat useful, 0.75 for useful and 1.00 for very useful. The scores were calculated on the basis of percentages of extension workers reporting each level of use of the sources.

5.3. Main Sources of Information

Ability to realize the need for information is a pre-requisite to the realization of the sources to be consulted and consequently the search pattern. A long list of main sources of information was provided and the respondents were asked to tick as many options as possible in the Figure 2 below.
Figure 2. Main Source of Information
Their responses are reflected in Figure 2. From the Figure, 56 respondents, representing (77.8%) indicate that their main sources are government documents. These are publications emanating directly from government, for example white paper, magazines, monthly reports etc. dealing with agricultural issues of concerns. 69 (95.8%) indicate that their main source is the research report. This suggests that research reports from universities and research institutes are their main source of information.
Academic staff from universities, especially Agronomy staff members were responsible for generating the information. Also, research institutes generate agricultural information. Examples of research institutes in Nigeria are National Animal Production Research Institute (NAPRI), Institutes of Agricultural Research (IAR), and International Institute for Tropical Agriculture (IITA), National Agricultural Extension Research Liaison Services (NAERLS), etc. The other respondent groups 34 (47.2%) indicate that their main source of information is the ICT tools. This implies that they make use of ICT tools in their retrieval of information. Such type of ICT tools includes, among others; computer, internet, GSM cell phones and others. The results of this study agree with a study conducted by Bolarin and Ayandale (2012). Bolarin and Ayandale (2012) reported that, extension workers in North Central Nigeria made use of ICT in the retrieval of information, but the extent of use is significantly very low.
Similarly, Ozowa, (2008) asserts that extension workers in Atisbo Area of Imo State, Nigeria use GSM in the retrieval of information. The other respondent group 59 (81.9%) indicates that they obtain agricultural information from the use of gray literature. This suggests that they made use of books and journals from libraries. The other group 41 (59.9%) indicates they obtain their information from the main source of multimedia. These are sources of information which can only be operated by the use of electricity. Such types of resources are radio, television, projector, slides and others. On whether irrigation farmers are satisfied with the information the respondent, deliver to them, 72 (100%) responded by saying yes. This is basic taking into consideration that no one will admit that his client were not satisfied with his activity. When cross tabulating academic staff sources of information with some of the socio-economic variables, the results show a significant relationship between level of experience of the extension workers with how they seek and obtained information. The cross tabulation indicates that the Pearson Chi-square tabulated is 38.850, the degree of freedom is 16, the likelihood ratio is 41.101, the linear by linear association is .260, while the Asymp.sig (2tailed) is .001. This implied that the χ2 is greater than 0.05, thus, this indicates that there is a significant relationship between the experience of the extension workers and their level of information seeking through the sources of information.
Similarly, the cross tabulation made on the educational level of the extension workers and their information seeking through the sources of information reveals that the Pearson chi-square is 18.889, the degree of freedom is 16, the likelihood ratio is 22.096, the linear by linear association is .066, while the Asymp.sig. is .274. This result also shows that the χ2 is greater than 0.05 which indicates a significant relationship between educational level of the extension workers and their level of information seeking through the various sources of information available to them.

5.4. Disseminating Information through ICT Tools

In response to global policy changes in the information age, Nigeria was among the first countries to embrace the ICT revolution. Access to information through ICT services improves considerably the performance of many sectors of the economy including agriculture. In Table 1, respondents were asked whether they have ever tried disseminating information to irrigation farmers through the information and communication technology resources.
Table 1. Dissemination of information Via ICT
     
From the Table, 6 representing (8.3%) indicates that they used ICT tools in disseminating information to the irrigation farmers. The respondents indicated that they disseminate information to irrigation farmers through cell-phone. Thus, cell-phones can be used to provide access to agricultural market information, and it can also be used to answer questions regarding farming, plough, application of fertilizer, watering and contour. While 66 representing (91.7%) indicates they have never used any of the ICT tools to disseminate information to irrigation farmers. This shows that, either they do not have access to it or they have no idea on how to use any of the ICT facilities. This also shows that they use the old paradigm of information dissemination through the word of mouth and through demonstrations. From the interview conducted with the respondents, they indicated that the majority of them have their own cell-phones with very little having computers, but the problem is from the irrigation farmers, whereby only very few of them have access to computers. The respondents also observed that due to the fact that the majority of the irrigation farmers do not have a formal education, there is no way they can use other ICT facilities, like the computer, internet and podcast. However, the results of this study is in line with Bolarin and Ayandale (2010), who points out that the majority of extension workers who perceived themselves as users of ICT are incompetent in most of the operation of the ICT for agricultural information dissemination.
From Table 2 the respondents were asked to specifically state whether they are adequate to meet the irrigation farmers’ needs, 5 respondents (6.9%) indicate they are adequate to meet the demand of the irrigation farmers. On the other hand, 67 respondents representing (93.1%), indicate they were not adequate to meet the demands of the farmers. The interview conducted also attests to this fact. Respondents were asked about their adequacy to serve the irrigation farmers, they responded by admitting they are inadequate to meet the demands of their clienteles (irrigation farmers). This study is in line with Opara, (2008) and Bello and Obinne, (2012) assertion that extension workers in Nigeria were inadequate to meet the demands of the farmers. The extension workers were put at 1-1600 farmers.
Table 2. Adequacy of Extension workers
     
Challenges are bottlenecks that became a hindrance toward the effective retrieval and dissemination of agricultural knowledge and information from the extension workers to the irrigation farmers. Table 3 explains how these challenges and problems affect Agricultural Knowledge and Information Support System in irrigation farming in Nigeria.
Table 3. Challenges of Information Dissemination
     
In Table 3, respondents were asked about the problems or challenges they face or they are facing in the dissemination of information to irrigation farmers as well as the problems they face or are facing toward getting information from stake holders in order to disseminate same to the irrigation workers. Results presented in Table 4, show that 66 respondents, representing (91.7%) indicate they face the problem of lack of proper linkage between them and other key actors involved in the generation, packaging, receiving and dissemination of the information. This suggests that they have no access to all actors, so their efforts to liaise and to link irrigation farmers with effective innovation and information at the right time are limited. The result of this study is in line with Hashemi, (2011); and Codjoe, et al., (2012); findings. The studies, assert that lack of linkage between key actors in agriculture affects the dissemination of agricultural knowledge and information to farmers. The other group of 71 respondents, (98.7%) indicates that they face problem of inadequacy of trained and enough extension workers.
Extension workers as mentioned are the link between farming community and policy makers and other key actors in Agriculture. The results of this study suggest that extension workers are lacking, inadequate, ill equipped and ill-trained. In essence, therefore, the mere lack of trained and enough extension workers may definitely affect the production capacity of irrigation farmers in North Western Nigeria. The extension workers disseminate agricultural knowledge and information to farmers through individual contact, group contact method, and through ICT and mass media. The other 49 respondent, (68.1%), indicate that the lack of ICT usage in the dissemination of agricultural knowledge and information to irrigation farmers in Katsina State, Nigeria is a serious problem. These ICT facilities aid the retrieval and dissemination of agricultural knowledge and information in a more secure, faster and acceptable format. Another group of 49 respondents (68.1%) indicate that they have a major problem of delay in accessing agricultural knowledge and information generated. This limitation causes delay for them to have access to the information and therefore they could not disseminate knowledge and information to the irrigation farmers as at when due.
Thus, these delays always affect farmers’ productivity. From the interview conducted, it was revealed that the delay in the retrieval of information by the extension workers affect their ability to disseminate agricultural knowledge and information to the irrigation farmers in Katsina State, Nigeria quickly. They further mentioned that although the knowledge and information usually arrive in time, the bottle-neck from the policy makers and implementers sometimes causes the delay in obtaining the information. Therefore, this brings about the inability of information transmission in time.

6. Conclusions and Recommendations

The paper attempts to evaluate the extension service delivery to irrigation farmers in Katsina State with the aim of finding their role in disseminating agricultural knowledge and information. The finding of the study indicates that irrigation farmer’s needs scientific and technical information. Furthermore, the findings of the study indicate that the little information disseminated is useful to the farmers but more needs to be delivered. Moreover, the respondent communicates agricultural knowledge and information to the irrigation farmers through ICT tools, especially radio, television, mass media and through the cell-phones, through contacts, meetings and through training and visits. However, the results show an insignificant utilization of ICT tools in disseminating information because of illiteracy levels of the irrigation farmers, cost of purchase of ICT tools, and lack of knowledge on how to use the ICT tools among others.
On the adequacy of the extension workers, the respondents indicate they are inadequate. This is by virtue of the fact that they are only 72 to cater for more than 7,000 irrigation farmers. The RBDA, the ADP, the state government and the local government do not support extension delivery in the study area. From the interview conducted, it was reveal that the local governments were the one who employed 97% of the extension workers to deliver extension services to the irrigation farmers in the study area. The study concludes and recommend that the extension workers in the study area be increased, employed, trained and post more extension workers to these irrigation sites. NGOs should reach out to the irrigation farmers through the extension workers in the whole of the study area. The extension workers should be provided with transport, allowances, and cell-phones to deliver extension messages in time. The training ad visits programme should be intensified to create avenue for training and sharing of ideas, views and new innovation between extension workers and the irrigation farmers. Finally, key actors in agriculture should all be involved in the agricultural development agenda for sustainability and food security to Katsina State and the Nation at large.

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