How much do Public Extension Workers contribute to market-oriented agricultural advisory services? Lessons from Northern Uganda (Published)
Market-oriented agricultural advisory services for smallholders are critical to achieving food, income, and economic security in developing nations. Using a market systems view, the study determined the extent to which decentralized public agricultural extension workers delivered specific services for market-oriented agriculture and the enabling and disabling factors. A survey of 184 public agricultural extension officers from Northern Uganda was conducted. Results: The perceived extent to which the extension workers engaged in agricultural risk identification and management, developing farmer organizations, and ensuring farm inputs supply was a mean score of 2.38, 2.31, and 2.28 out of 3 respectively, and between 83.6% and 86.6% of the extension workers engaged routinely with them. The average engagement in agribusiness and markets was 2.00. Most market-oriented activities were engaged in albeit in selected seasons. Enablers included government policies, stakeholder support, and frequent training while limited government support, high extension farmer ratio, and limited leadership on gender and youth inclusion were disablers.
Keywords: Decentralization, Market-oriented agricultural advisory services, disablers, enablers, public extension workers