ASSESSMENT OF THE TRAINING NEEDS OF AGRICULTURAL EXTENSION PERSONNEL IN NORTHWESTERN NIGERIA

Abstract

The study was carried out in Northwestern Nigeria. Multistage sampling procedure was used to select 306 respondents for the study. Primary data was collected via a structured questionnaire and Key Informant Interview (KII). Descriptive, and Kendall’s W Test were employed to analyzed the data. Results on socio-economic and psychological characteristics revealed that the extension personnel had a mean age of 39.4 years and they were mostly (83.7%) male, (90.2%) were married, 77.8% held OND/HND qualifications, with an average of 15.8 years of schooling. The mean household size and working experiences are 4 persons per household and 7.3 years respectively. They had averaging 8 training sessions and had covered a mean of 7473 farm families. More than half (58.8%) specialized in agricultural extension, 62.1%) belonged to professional associations. A significant proportion (82%) came from farming families and seminars were the most attended training type (53.9%). Results revealed that the highest-priority training needs were knowing extension approaches (Mean Rank = 12.7), training on extension goal philosophy (Mean Rank = 13.1), knowing needs assessment tools (Mean Rank = 13.1) among others. Results on constraints faced among respondents revealed that too many jobs with different specializations (97.1%), lack of training and re-training (88.9%), unavailability of resources (75.2%), lack of funding (74.8%), disproportionate extension-farmer ratio (73.9%) and poor remuneration (72.5%) & Poor Attitude (62.1%) were the major constraints. It was concluded that addressing training need would significantly improve the effectiveness of agricultural extension services in the region. Therefore, it was recommended that there should be a continuous professional development, particularly in ICT skills, basic communication, and modern extension techniques, should be prioritized for extension personnel while government and non-governmental organizations should continue recruiting additional extension personnel to help reduce the current disproportionate extension-farmer ratio.