The goal of this research was to assess the effectiveness of Farmer Field School on the productivity of cassava farmers in Calabar agricultural zone, Cross River State, Nigeria. The specific objectives were to describe the socio-economic characteristics of respondents; determine the perceived effectiveness of FFS as an extension approach; and assess the perceived effectiveness of FFS on farmers’ productivity one hypothesis, “there is no significant difference between yield and income of participants before and after participation in FFS” was formulated to serve as a guide for the research. Multi-stage and purposive sampling procedures were used to select 320 respondents for the study. However, on retrieval, 318 questionnaires were realized. Primary and secondary data were the main sources of information for the study. Structured questionnaire, validated and tested for reliability was used for data collection. Descriptive statistics such as mean, frequency and percentages, were used to analyze the objectives. Paired t-test was used to analyze the hypothesis. The result revealed that majority (64.5%) of the respondents were men, 39.3 percent were between the age bracket of 31-40 years, 86.5 percent were married, with a mean household size of 6 persons. The result further showed that FFS was positively perceived to be an effective extension approach (=2.83); helping farmers gather useful information to improve their farming (=2.84), among others. The result also showed that FFS was perceived to be effective in increasing the output and income of farmers after participation. Paired t-test revealed average yield of 69.90kg and 146.96kg, as well as average income of N35,773.58 and N75,411.95, before and after FFS. The difference was significant at 0.01 alpha level. FFS should be scaled up to cover all the Local Government Areas in the State and Country at large. It was also recommended that FFS should be used by extension service providers as effective training approach to avail participants with hands-on knowledge about their enterprises.
Citation: N.A., Ayi and U.C., Undiandeye(2022) Effectiveness of Farmer Field School on the Productivity of Cassava Farmers in Calabar Agricultural Zone, Cross River State, Nigeria, International Journal of Agricultural Extension and Rural Development Studies, Vol.9, No.1, pp.19-37
Keywords: Approach, Effectiveness, extension, farmer field school
