Direct and interactional effects of three extension organisations on crop production and farmers' education in northern Tanzania

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Date

1981

Journal Title

Journal ISSN

Volume Title

Publisher

The University of the West Indies

Abstract

The importance of having an efficient Agriculture Extension Service m predominantly Agricultural countries like Tanzania need no over emphasis. In this study cotton extension service and coffee extension service were studied in comparison with the general extension service The study in Same and Mwanga Districts in Kilimanjaro Region. included 1977/78 and 1979/80 cropping seasons because individual villages began keeping separate data in 1977/78 season. The time of actual field work was between June and November 1980. Total yields and quality in all villages were recorded for the period under study. However, the knowledge of the improved practices by the farmers was obtained by random sampling from the total villages and from each randomly picked village, 20 farmers were randomly selected. Descriptive statistics were used in analysing yield and quality changes over the study period in each extension system. Descriptive statistics were used to analyse the distribution of respondents in various knowledge categories; and chi-square test was used to find out association of farmers’ knowledge with various farmers’ characteristics Cotton and coffee respondents were dealt with separately. The findings suggest that resident general extension agents perform better than their commodity counterparts. It was also noted that placing the two extension agents in the same village does not necessarily increase performance than where resident general extension worker alone exists. It was found out that knowledge of improved practices did not differ significantly among the extension systems. It was concluded that increasing the number of resident general extension agents could have improved production more than the commodity approach.

Description

Dissertation

Keywords

Agriculture extension service, Cotton extension service, Coffee extension service

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