Integration of manure and mineral fertilizers among smallholder farmers in Kenya: a pathway to sustainable soil fertility management and agricultural intensification (Published)
Combination of mineral fertilizers and manure has been proposed as the sustainable approach of soil fertility management. This study evaluates the use of these two soil fertility practices. Data for this study was obtained through a survey conducted between January-March 2019 with 106 farmers. Results show that the proportion of farmers who used manure and inorganic fertilizer was 93.4% in each case. About 90% of the farmers used both fertilizer and manure. Farmers accessed fertilizers mostly through direct purchase from the local market (73.9%). Most of the manure is obtained on-farm (84.8%). About 67% of farmers used fertilizer both for planting and top dressing. However, only 20% of the farmers used fertilizer every season. Low income, low literacy, lack of soil fertility management skills, small land sizes, low livestock units, limited and declining capacity of agricultural extension explain the low investment in soil fertility management. Timely delivery of low-cost, high quality fertilizer is of paramount concern. Glaring loopholes undermining the efficiency of the government subsidy program have to be addressed. Farmers’ capacity building is necessary to ensure high quality manure. Policy and institutional support are necessary to reverse the declining capacity of soil science research and agricultural extension.
Keywords: Agricultural Extension, Fertilizer, Soil fertility, Subsidy, declining soil fertility, integrated soil fertility management, manure, sustainable agricultural intensification
Video Documentary Training in Agricultural Extension in the 21st Century: A Qualitative Assessment of Cassava Farmers in South-West Nigeria (Published)
Video documentaries are means of communication adopted by several sectors including agriculture to pass useful and required information to respective audiences. It has become one of the major tools utilized by extension agents as instructional materials for agricultural educational purposes in major parts of the world. In Nigeria, agricultural programmes are packaged by extension agents in collaboration with some media houses and broadcast at certain times which may not be convenient to watch, understand, and later referred to. This study therefore assessed the effectiveness of video documentary as training tool for farmers in south-west Nigeria. Methodologically, the qualitative approach was adopted as farmers were trained with the aid of a video documentary as instructional material and were assessed before and after the trainings provided with structured interview guides to gather the data required. The findings showed that video documentaries are effective training tools that aid understanding and retention of information shared even after several weeks of the training. Conventional extension practice is enjoined to embrace video documentaries as instructional training tools to facilitate and enhance farmer’s agricultural learning.
Keywords: Agricultural Extension, Effectiveness, Nigeria, South-western States, Video documentary
Assessment of Farmers’ Preference for Agricultural Extension Systems in Nigeria (Published)
This study assessed farmers’ preference for agricultural extension systems in Nigeria. The specific objectives included the description of socio-economic characteristics of farmers in the six geopolitical zones of Nigeria, determination of the number of farmers benefiting from public or private extension systems, farmers preference of extension delivery systems, etc. Data were obtained from primary and secondary sources. A random sampling technique was used in the selection of farmers. Descriptive statistics, likert scale were employed for analysis. The major findings of the study shows that, majority of the farmers were males and easily accessed agricultural extension services also, majority of the farmers have high preference for private extension system as is more relevance in addressing their problems. It is recommended that gradual steps be adopted in changing to private agricultural extension system and outsourcing of extension is require.
Keywords: Agricultural Extension, Private, public