22 pages, While climate change threatens global food security, health, and nutrition outcomes, Africa is more vulnerable because its economies largely depend on rain-fed agriculture. Thus, there is need for agricultural producers in Africa to employ robust adaptive measures that withstand the risks of climate change. However, the success of adaptation measures to climate change primarily depends on the communities’ knowledge or awareness of climate change and its risks. Nonetheless, existing empirical research is still limited to illuminate farmers’ awareness of the climate change problem. This study employs a Bayesian hierarchical logistic model, estimated using Hamiltonian Monte Carlo (HMC) methods, to empirically determine drivers of smallholder farmers’ awareness of climate change and its risks to agriculture in Zambia. The results suggest that on average, 77% of farmers in Zambia are aware of climate change and its risks to agriculture. We find socio-demographics, climate change information sources, climate change adaptive factors, and climate change impact-related shocks as predictors of the expression of climate change awareness. We suggest that farmers should be given all the necessary information about climate change and its risks to agriculture. Most importantly, the drivers identified can assist policymakers to provide the effective extension and advisory services that would enhance the understanding of climate change among farmers in synergy with appropriate farm-level climate-smart agricultural practices.
23 pages, Increasing doctoral degree holders in Sub-Saharan Africa may significantly impact the quality and quantity of undergraduate and graduate programs. Research capacity is crucial to successfully completing a thesis or dissertation and obtaining a graduate degree. Unfortunately, in Sub-Saharan Africa, many students abandon or delay their degrees at this stage due to limited research and writing skills. This study aimed to identify the most critical thesis and dissertation (TD) research needs of masters and PhD students from Sub-Saharan Africa. Thirty-eight skills were identified from the literature and presented to agricultural education and extension/leadership students. Borich (1980) and Witkin (1984) needs assessment models were used to ascertain the perceived importance and extent of students' knowledge of TD topic areas. The top identified needs were extracting a manuscript from a thesis, writing a journal article, choosing inferential statistics, deciding the descriptive statics, and what to review in the literature. A total of 15 items were identified as critical needs using the Witkin model. The findings identified challenges and opportunities for improving Sub-Saharan African graduate students' research knowledge and TD performance, implying that combining the two models to identify training needs may produce more comprehensive results than using only one methodology.
16 pages, Lack of access to agricultural extension and advisory services has been identified as one of the major challenges facing emerging farmers in South Africa. The purpose of this study was to determine the level of access to these services by emerging livestock farmers in uThungulu District Municipality of KwaZulu-Natal. A survey design was used with face-to-face interviews to collect data using a semi-structured questionnaire. A sample of 1 437 was randomly selected from 4 792 emerging livestock farmers in the district. Descriptive statistical analyses were performed using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) version 23 software. The results show that more than 90% of emerging livestock farmers in the district had high access to public extension and 14% had access to private extension, in addition. About 32% of the respondents also had access to extension and advisory services from agricultural cooperatives. There was an improvement in access to these services by emerging farmers compared to the past. The involvement of the private sector and cooperatives in rendering extension and advisory services to emerging livestock farmers shows that various stakeholders are involved in improving emerging livestock farmers in the province.
18 pages, This study examines factors that appear to contribute to farmers’ adoption and discontinuation of poly house technology for off-season vegetable production. We collected cross-sectional survey data from a sample of 151 households in Kaski district, Nepal during October 2018. The data are analyzed using Heckman’s two stage sample selection model. The study reveals that the family members report being engaged in nonfarm sector that there is an increased probability of discontinuation of poly house technology. Farmers may be diverting their labor towards nonfarm activities that result in higher returns to labor and different risks. At the same time, the results indicate that farmers who did not receive training on vegetable production were more likely to discontinue poly house technology. It was also found that increasing farmers’ engagement with marketing activities increased the likelihood of farmers to continue poly house technology and increase household income. The provision of continued technical support (e.g., training), input supply (e.g., seeds, fertilizers) and market information are essential to sustain the adopted technologies. The study sheds light on the sustainability of technology adoption by underpinning the importance of extension services for longer-term adoption. We believe that the combined effect of various technologies would be associated with sustained adoption of the improved off-season technologies. This provides a new direction to operationalize farmer-oriented policies in agricultural extension and helps in devising programs for sustained adoption of technology.
11 pages, Extension is well-positioned to facilitate communication strategies that foster community resilience and disaster recovery, particularly for rural residents. This paper proposes a new approach to post-disaster communication that strengthens rural community capacities in locally and culturally relevant ways. The findings revealed specific post-disaster information needs, preferences for local resources, and communication that encourages resilience through a document analysis and interviews with informants recovering from the 2020 Colorado wildfires. The practical recommendations discussed serve as a starting point for Extension professionals in other areas to consider ways to engage with their communities before, during, and after a disaster.
9 pages., The paper explored the policy options targeted at preventing extreme hunger after surviving the COVID-19 pandemic. Multistage sampling procedure was used to select 15 key informants across five purposively selected Local Government Areas in Kaduna and Ogun States for this study. Checklist (administered through recorded telephone calls) was used to elicit responses (qualitative data) on the impacts of COVID-19 on the food system. This paper concludes that the COVID-19 pandemic has negatively impacted on the food system thus challenging the AES to employ more innovative and pragmatic approaches to reach the farmers. Major impacts of COVID-19 on food system were disruptions in agricultural production, limitation of field visit by extension personnel and distortion of technology delivery system. Major recommendations include: in response to the stay-at-home order in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, Agricultural extension services (AES) should explore virtual means to reach the clientele. To this end, farm operations and new techniques should be packaged into short clips and shared via various platforms. Also, legislative means to consider AEAS as essential services should be sought; and extensionists should be trained and provided with personal protection equipment (PPE) to enable them reach farmers. Such field officers should be insured and provided with adequate tangible mobility.
8 pages, Agricultural extension can be defined as the entire set of organisations that support and facilitate people engaged in agricultural production to solve problems and to obtain information, skills and technologies to improve their livelihoods and well-being. Extension officials should ensure that farmers are engaged and capacitated so that they can make production decisions that are not in conflict with nature, yet such decisions ensure that their well-being is improved. With 75% of the world’s poor living in rural areas, the topic of improved agriculture through agricultural extension is viewed as central to poverty reduction. There have been questions posed by stakeholders (communities, policy-makers and politicians) about the non-visibility and accountability of agricultural extension in the communities that it is supposed to help. There are however a number of factors (perceived or real) that make agricultural extension less or not visible nor accountable. Therefore, this paper investigates and proposes a theoretical framework or model to ensure that agricultural extension is visible and accountable to all stakeholders. This will in turn ensure that there are noticeable increases or improvement of the lives of the resource poor farmers and communities.
8 pages, Agricultural extension is now backing on the development agenda. The acknowledged failure of the traditional extension model in India has stimulated debate on extension reforms and the introduction of new extension models. Further, Indian agriculture has recorded an alarming ‘knowledge gap’ where ‘knowledge’ became central to agricultural production. The role of extension functionaries today is more challenging and demands structural and functional changes to meet the holistic needs of farmers and they have to equip themselves to cope with the drastic chance and dire needs. Agricultural extension is not only about imparting knowledge and securing adoption of improved practices but it also aims at changing the outlook of farmers. Moreover, Indian agriculture is undergoing a rapid transformation under globalization from a simple making a living to complex endeavour. Information revolution leads to fundamental changes in economic, political, social and cultural relations. Information technology is the lifeblood of many other technologies. It is opined that there is direct relationship between communication and development of agricultural sector. New information technology provides the opportunity for innovation. The ‘free flow of information’ will help the farmers is to overcome the knowledge gap and the availability of the new technology lead farmers to make real choice. This paper emphasizes on the role of ICTs in contemporary agricultural context and critically understands the failure of traditional extension functionaries.
5 pages, The current research was planned and conducted at Institute of Agricultural Extension, Education
and Rural Development, University of Agriculture, Faisalabad, Pakistan during the year 2019-20
and restricted to district Gujranwala with respect to potato crop. The main objective of this study
was to compare the extension services provided by the public and private sector along with
different teaching methodologies adopted by them. However, 36 respondents from each tehsil
of district Gujranwala were selected through convenient sampling technique. Thereby, getting a
sample size of 144 for the purpose of data collection for which interviews were conducted. Data
were analyzed through SPSS. Results were explained through weighted score and mean values
of all variables. According to results it was found that both sectors were giving useful knowledge
to farmers with different teaching methods. It was also concluded that farmers had desire to take
information from public sector but they have to go to private sector for products. Furthermore, it
was also concluded that performance of public sector was better than private sector.
19 pages., To harness the potential of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs), developing countries need to develop national ICT policies that will serve as a framework for integrating ICTs at all levels of society. In the absence of that, different actors often engage in various actions for the same beneficiaries and in pursuit of the same objectives. That raises the need to define a national framework for the promotion and application of ICTs in the various production areas, particularly agricultural ones. It is for that reason that this study examined through qualitative methods (policy documents and semi-structured interviews) the national policy of Mali on the use of ICTs in agriculture. Data was analysed using the Qualitative Content Analysis (QCA) method with the aid of NVIVO 12 software. The results showed that the country has two policy documents that articulate the country’s strategy towards the use of ICTs in the agricultural sector, that is, the Agricultural Orientation Law and the National Strategy for the Development of the Digital Economy. Further examination revealed that that these two policy documents are neither appropriate nor coherent in today's Malian landscape. This has resulted in an underutilisation of digital tools by agricultural extension officers which led to the low agricultural productivity in the country. This study recommended therefore the recasting of both documents to take into account the reported observations
