Abstract:
This study assessed the roles of rural community leadership in promoting agricultural extension
programmes in kebbi state. A Multi stage sampling technique was employed to draw a sample of
352 respondents from kebbi state comprising eight LGAs. A set of structured questionnaires
were used to obtain information from the respondents. Descriptive statistics, and Logit regression
analysis were used for data analysis. The result of the study showed that majority (95.5%) were
male while (4.5%) were females respectively. The research study found out that 33.2% had
access to extension services while 66.8% does not have access to extension services. Similarly,
the research study unveiled that 43.4% respondents had leadership experience of between 10-19
years while the lowest category of leaders of 0-9 year’s leadership experience constituted 4.5%.
The survey further identified that 93.8% of respondents were involved in decision making
process regarding programmes and projects of community interest,93.5% and 89.0% respectively
showed the percentage of respondents who were into community mobilization and project
legitimization while the least 3.1% of the level of involvement of community leaders in
agricultural extension service delivery. The study further revealed that 8.82% mean rank of the
respondents determined feasible agricultural extension programmes, 8.73 were into consulting
community members prior to project implementation, 8.70 and another 8.70 mean rank of the
respondents performed roles of monitoring and evaluation of agricultural extension programmes
and making decisions on different issues relating to agricultural extension programmes. Logit
regression analysis showed that the coefficient of coordinating all agricultural extension
programmes (0.18) positively and significantly influenced leadership role performance at 5%level of significance. Similarly, the estimated coefficient of t-value of ensuring cordial
relationship among farmers (109) and ensuring all assistance from government and nongovernmental organizations reaches farmers (303) significantly influenced leadership role
performance in the study area. The study also unveiled that 7.1%,9.7 and 8.5% representing
farmer training, provision of credit facility and provision of agro-input respectively were some of
the extension roles performed by leaders in the study area while the extension approaches
adopted were training and visit 9.7%,community specialized extension 9.9%,farm research
extension 9.7% and participatory extension 9.1%. It is concluded that community leaders in the
study area performed significant roles of decision making process, coordinating all agricultural
extension programmes, project legitimization and monitoring and evaluation of programmes
which impacted positively on the livelihood of the farmers. It is recommended that rural
community leaders should be given enough reward in order to sustain their interest and
perception of their ascribed roles in agricultural extension programmes, more female should be
encouraged to perform leadership roles in agricultural extension activities, provision of extension
services to farmers in groups should be encouraged by the local leaders due to scarcity of AEAS,
provision of extension services through non-visits such as radio and television programmes
should be intensified by community leaders, organizing refresher courses and in-service training
for community. |
