Abstract
Farmers’ adoption of technology or technical knowledge recommended by extension officials is considerably influenced by their perception of the usefulness of that technology or knowledge. Cognizant of this, we conducted a study of 200 farm households in Balochistan, Pakistan to analyze how useful date farmers found the available agricultural extension services. Primary data were collected by questionnaire, and statistical tools including cross tabulation, a binary correlation matrix and logistic regression were used. In most cases, the same factors influencing varying perceptions of the usefulness of the services were significantly positively correlated with perceptions of the usefulness of both land preparation methods and pest control-related extension services. Variables included head of household’s age, head of household’s literacy, adequacy of irrigation water, field assistant’s visits to the farmer, farmer’s visits to the District Agriculture Extension Department (DAED) and percentage of dead trees. Although most farmers were visited once a year, fewer than half used the services, which were mostly for land preparation and pest control. Conclusions are drawn and broad policy recommendations made for enhancing the production of crops in general and date palm in particular
Dr. Mumtaz A. Baloch, Gopal B. Thapa. (2015) The Usefulness and Use of Agricultural Extension Services in Balochistan, Pakistan, Balochistan Review, Volume 1, Issue 1.
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