Assessment of Extension Services Delivery to Fish Farmers in South Western Nigeria

Abstract

Inability of fish farmers in Nigeria to produce at a rate that can meet the population demand has been linked to lack of access to crucial information on improved fish farming technique. Information is an indispensable factor in fish farming and it is the basis of extension service delivery. This study was designed to describe demographic characteristic of fish farmers, identify sources of various information to fish farmers and identify information access constraints faced by farmers. Purposive sampling procedure was used to select 2 States and a total of 160 respondents were selected for the study. Descriptive statistics such as frequency, percentage, mean and standard deviation and Chi-Square (X2) was used for inferential statistics. Result revealed that mean age was 44.8 years, 77.5% were male, only 7.5% have no formal education and 98.1% were full time fish farmers. About 25.0% received information frequently, 50.6% rarely while 24.4% never received information from extension agents. Inadequate of extension contact was identified by 88.8% of the respondents as information access constraint. Chi-Square analysis showed significant relationship (X2 = 13.426, p = 0.016) between source of information and utilization of information.

Identifying and addressing extension service delivery gaps: A study on fish farmers of Andhra Pradesh, India

“…Developing a strong support system with access to the latest research and technology could significantly improve their problemsolving abilities (Antwi-Agyei and Stringer, 2021) [3] [24] found that the major issue faced by farmers was the inability of extension agents to sustain long conversations with them. Enhancing communication training for extension agents can improve interaction with farmers, leading to better delivery of extension services (Apata et al, 2018, Antwi-Agyei and Stringer, 2021) [4,3] . The fifth limitation, as indicated in Table 3, was the VFAs' inability to build rapport with farmers, suggests that VFAs were unable to connect with farmers on a personal level, preventing farmers from feeling that the agents genuinely cared about their circumstances and that interacting with them would help solve their specific problems.…”