The dynamics experienced in agricultural practice has put extension service delivery on a new platform that requires regular updating of the extension staff knowledge for new competences, to meet the changing needs of the clientele they serve. This study therefore sought to determine the training needs of extension personnel of Agricultural Development Programme (ADP) in Ekiti State of Nigeria. The population of the study was all extension personnel in the three agricultural zones of the Ekiti State ADP. Random sampling technique was used to select 60 extension personnel from a total of 65 extension personnel from the zones to which questionnaire were administered; however, only 51 questionnaires were returned which were analysed for this study. The mean age of the extension personnel was 44 years with about 63% within the age range of 41-50 years. About 76.5% of the extension workers had higher national diploma (HND). Forty seven percent of the extension personnel had work experience between 11 and 20 years; about 33% of them had work experience between 1 and 10 years while 19.6% had above 20 years experience at work. The results of the chi square analysis show that factors such as sex (X 2 = 8.24, p < 0.5), educational level (X 2 = 6.49; p < 0.05), years of work experience of the extension personnel (X 2 =11.58, p < 0.5) and attendance of in-service training (X 2 = 6.32; p < 0.10) were significant determinants of their training needs.
In this study the level of knowledge, skill and training needs of fish farmers in Ikorodu Local Government Area of Lagos State were investigated. Eighty out of 150 fish farmers currently operating in the Fish Farm Estate, Ikorodu were randomly selected. Data were collected from the farmers with structured interview schedule and were summarised with frequency counts, percentages, mean and correlation coefficient. Result showed that the following practices were carried out by farmers: pond/vats/fibre glass/tank cleaning, water quality maintenance and management, pond fertilisation, brood stock production, spawning, fingerlings sourcing/production, disease prevention, control and management, feed formulation and production/sourcing, record keeping, fish feeding, fish processing, fish storage, fish sorting, pest and predator control, fry care, transfer and feeding, siphoning, and fish transportation. The mean age of the fish farmers were 45±13.0 years with 63.8% being males.Majority (78.8%) weremarried withmean family size of 4±2 .Majority (82.5%) of the farmers had more than twelve years of formal education. The mean farming experience was 8±3 yearswith averagemean income of 1.4million naira.58.8% and 47.5% had high level of knowledge and skill respectively. Training was needed in seven out of the seventeen practices. The major constraints to fish production are high cost of feed and lack of capital. Also, a positive and significant relationship exist between level of knowledge of the farmers and farmers' gender, marital status, membership of cooperative society and fish farming association and primary occupation while age of the farmers had a negative but significant relationshipwith it. It is recommended that training by extension agents should focus the area of training needs and that credit and cost of fish feeds be subsidized
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