Overview of the Problem of Agricultural Extension
Agricultural extension remains a veritable tool for helping farmers improve their skills in farming living standards through good farm management skills and the adoption of modern farming techniques with the potential to increase agricultural productivity.
Agricultural Extension Service is an educational program introduced to help farmers change their perceptions and acquire knowledge, skills, and attitudes to increase food production.
Agricultural extension is aimed at promoting rapid economic development as well as creating adequate avenues to improve the adoption of technologies and innovation for the rapid increase in productivity and self-sufficiency.
Agricultural extension programs are vital for national economic development, enhanced farmer income, and living standards.
Extension programs have not fully achieved their objectives of increasing food production, improving the standard of living, and enhancing farm income due to the mired of problems limiting the effective implementation of agricultural extension programs in Nigeria.
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The Problem of Agricultural Extension in Nigeria
Some of the challenges of Agricultural Extension in Nigeria as listed by West African examination councils are:
Inadequate Extension Officers
Agricultural extension service in Nigeria is faced with a shortage of agricultural extension personnel which has become an obstacle to the smooth running of extension services in the country.
The rate of extension agents to farmers in Nigeria is estimated to be at a ratio of 1:1800, and this insufficient extension personnel can the training of farmers on modern farming techniques and
The low quantities of extension agents to farmers in Nigeria have affected the rate of disseminating innovations to farmers.
In some Ministry of Agriculture in the local government, the numbers of extension agents to farmers could be as low as below five, these numbers cannot solve the problem of farmers in those localities and have affected agricultural extension services delivery.
More so, most of these agricultural extension agents are at the peak of their careers, and their capacity and strength to deliver their services have also been after.
Even when the farmer visits these extension agents in their offices to ask for important information, the strength to demonstrate innovations and techniques to farmers is limited, coupled with the inability Ministry of Agriculture to organize training and conferences to keep extension staff abreast of modern methods of farming or innovations in agriculture is lacking, this has affected the abilities of extension agents to deliver their services effectively.
Inadequate Transportation Network
A good road network is necessary to facilitate the movement of farmers, extension agents, and produce from the rural area where the farming takes place to the urban area for sales.
Unfortunately, some roads leading to Rural communities in Nigeria are not easily accessible due to their bad nature, which makes it difficult to access these farmers.
The bad road is usually not easily accessible by the extension agents which increases the cost of transportation. Transportation limits agricultural extension agents from meeting their responsibility of attending to as many farmers as they can, and this leads to poor extension services.
The inability of extension agents to locate farmers living in this area will give room to farmers to use poor farming methods which lead to low food productivity. Bad roads disconnect rural farmers from the urban area, which eventually limits farmers’ access to government intervention in farming resulting in food insecurity.
The bad road network has negative effects on agricultural farmers’ abilities to meet farmers’ demands which leads to low adoption of technologies and innovations that may increase food production. This also constitutes problems of agricultural extension in Nigeria.
Illiteracy of the Farmers
Illiteracy is another problem of agricultural extension in Nigeria, as some farmers in Nigeria did not cross the four walls of the educational system hence their inability to read and write.
The resultant effect of these is that they cannot read instructions needed for the adoption of modern agricultural innovation.
Illiteracy has resulted in farmers sticking to the traditional system and techniques of farming that do not guarantee an increase in yields and productivity.
Farmers’ capacity to manage farm production and marketing of agricultural products such as crops, livestock, fisheries, and forestry are limited due to illiteracy.
Enlightenment campaigns on the efficient and effective methods of agricultural development and sustainable agriculture have not yielded results hence food insecurity, poverty, and poor environment management have been at high rates because of illiteracy.
Language Barrier
Efficient extension service delivery could be hindered by poor communication resulting in food insecurity, an increase in poverty, rural neglect, and environmental management.
Language barriers prevent the efficient transmission of information, building farmers’ capacity and encouraging farmers to make informed decisions on the success of farming.
Nigeria has a lot of ethnic dialects spoken across every local government area. These different ethnic dialects across the country make agricultural extension services difficult to the extent that the delivery of agricultural technologies, innovations, and techniques has not been effective.
Agricultural extension services may not be effective in an area where farmers do not understand the English language or extensions do not understand the farmer’s dialect.
Communicating modern innovative ideas about crop cultivation and animal rearing hinders the practices of modern farming methods.
providing logistics support to farmers, field demonstrations, and agricultural extension linkages through poor communication methods have limited extension services, and this problem of agricultural extension has hindered efficient service delivery.
Poor Monitoring of Extension Services
Increasing agricultural productivity, giving supportive advice, and providing service-oriented activities to farmers could be hindered if extension programs are poorly monitored.
Extension projects in most localities are abandoned halfway probably due to the bad nature of the road liking to the communities or traveling on the river or sea by boat to monitor extension projects, inadequate incentive leads to poor monitoring of extension projects.
The facilities required by agricultural extension agents to visit farmers to monitor projects and provide agricultural extension services to farmers are not available.
Most farming communities in Nigeria require agricultural extension agents to travel a few kilometers on motorbikes to monitor or deliver extension services could reduce their effectiveness in service delivery to farmers.
The Conservatism among Farmers
Implementation of integrated extension services through rural development can be hindered by farmers’ Conservative nature.
The superstitious ability of some Nigerian farmers has made them stick to traditional farming systems that have no impact on food production.
The unbound behavior of some farmers hinders agricultural policy that can help to promote food security, poverty reduction, and rural economic development.
The agricultural Farming pattern in Nigeria has been successive, the same system of farming and techniques are often passed from parents to their offspring without a necessary increase in food production.
This traditional mindset acquired by farmers makes it difficult for farmers to accept new innovative ideas in agriculture.
Conservative farmers do not easily adopt modern farming techniques and change, and most extension agents may not have all the time to demonstrate all the modern practices to the farmers. These attitudes prevent the adoption of new innovative farming practices.
Inadequate Supply of Subject Matter Specialties
The insufficient number of extension subject matter specialties is another problem of agricultural extension which hinders the efficient delivery of extension services.
The implementation of extension projects can be jeopardized by the limited number of extension subject matter specialists. The few available extension agents in the Ministry are overstressed, leading to fatigue which limits the ability to execute the extension service.
An inadequate supply of subject matter specialties reduces extension agents’ ability to monitor extension projects and the implementation of farmer’s friendly policies.
Extension projects with an Inadequate supply of subject matter specialties will lead to extension agents working extra time, by so doing they can break down mentally, emotionally, and physically.
Extension agents that are sick, mentally, and emotionally unstable will lead to absenteeism from work, which can also add to the staffing problem.
Under supply of subject matter, specialties will make farmers lose confidence in the type of training and innovation they receive from the extension agents, as the extension agents will be in a hurry to explain and demonstrate important concepts to farmers.
Inadequate Incentives for Extension Officers / Insufficient Motivation Extension Agent
Inadequate incentive for extension officers is a problem of agricultural extension that could reduce the interest of extension agents in the delivery of extension services.
Extension agents who are highly motivated will be spurred to work due to the motivation received. But on the other hand, poorly motivated and rewarded extension workers will put less effort into the system.
The incentive to agricultural extension agents is not limited to monetary value but also includes the nature of work, working environment, the culture of work, incentive or reward received, and workload.
Incentives and rewards are key motivational factors that bring changes in behavior. The work of the extension agents is so laborious but with incentives and rewards, they will be motivated to do their best.
The attitude of agricultural extension agents varies and may react to incentives differently. Incentives and rewards motivate individuals to put extra effort into performing a particular assigned job and keep extension agents highly motivated to increase their service effectiveness.
Extension workers who are poorly motivated tend to show aggressive, assertive behavior to assigned duties.
Inadequate Credit Facilities for Farmers
Agricultural extension service delivery will be effective and efficient if farmers are given financial assistance to help purchase farm inputs and boost agricultural production.
The inability of extension agents to provide some financial assistance to the farmers has constituted a big barrier to extension service delivery in Nigeria.
Credit facilities will help farmers purchase farm inputs, rent land, and expand their farm beyond the subsistence level, whenever these are not available during extension service, the farmer will feel reluctant to partake in the extension program.
The farmers see the extension worker as the link to the government, and during the extension program, the farmers see the extension agent as government personnel, so they will expect financial assistance from the extension agents.
most extension programs in Nigeria have credit facilities attached to them, but in most cases, the credit facilities do not get to the farmers, these add to the problem of agricultural extension in Nigeria which hindered farmers’ active participation in the extension program.
Conflicting Religious Beliefs and Tradition
This is another problem of agricultural extension confronting the smooth running of extension services in Nigeria.
Religion is believed to limit farmers’ adoption of agricultural innovation in Nigeria. Traditionally, In some communities women are not allowed to own land or carry out negotiations on land, this hinders small-scale woman farmers from accessing land for agricultural activities or adopting innovations to increase food production.
Some religions in Nigeria do not permit the discussion or rearing of certain farm animals which the extension agents may not have the right to discuss.
These Conflicting religious beliefs and traditions hurt agricultural extension services.
Corruption Among Extension Agents.
Corruption among extension agents is a Problem of Agricultural Extension which has negative implications on the effectiveness of extension services in Nigeria.
A lot of financial allocation for the promotion of extension services, transportation of workers to monitor extension projects, and financial support to farmers is not been used for the particular reasons it is been budgeted for or ends up in the pockets of a few individuals.
In the end, many agricultural projects are abandoned, and innovations or farming up meat for the project does not get to the farmers.
Inadequate Programme Evaluations.
A bad road network coupled with the Corruption of extension agents leads to poor evaluation of the extension program.
The means of transportation to be used by the extension agents to travel to rural communities to evaluate the performance of projects or make decisions concerning the success of the projects are not even in good condition or most cases not even available.
Even the number of extension agents available to monitor the projects executed may not be enough, which also hinders the success of extension services in Nigeria. All this constitutes a problem of agricultural extension which affects the extension service-delivery system.
In conclusion
The Problem of Agricultural Extension in Nigeria such as conflicting religious beliefs and traditions, Inadequate credit facilities for Farmers, conservatism among farmers, and so on.
These challenges have limited the adoption of innovative farming practices and low agricultural productivity leading to food importations in Nigeria.