Full Length Research Paper
Impact of innovative approaches
of agricultural extension
services on rural women for
profitable crop production in
Benue State, Nigeria
1Ekele, Garba Emmanuel, 2Awai,
Dooshima Winifred and
Amonjenu, Anthony*3
Abstract
The study investigated the
impact of innovative
approaches of Agricultural
extension services on rural
women for profitable crop
production in Benue State,
Nigeria. Three research
questions and two hypotheses
were formulated to guide the
study. The study adopted
survey research design. The
study was carried out in
Benue State, Nigeria. The
population of the study was
503 made up of 77 extension
agents and 426 registered
women farmers. The sample
for the study was 360
selected using multi-stage
sampling techniques
(Stratified random sampling
was used to select a sample
of 283 rural farmers from
the three strata ( Zone A, B
and C agricultural zones of
Benue state) while the
whole 77 extension agents in
the state were purposively
selected and used for the
study). Checklist and A 17-
items structured
questionnaire titled
‘Agricultural extension
service innovative approach
questionnaire’ (AESIAQ) was
developed from literature
and used for data
collection. The instrument
was face and content
validated by three experts.
Cronbach alpha method was
used to establish the
internal consistency of the
items which yielded a
reliability coefficient of
0.99. Percentage and mean
were used to answer the
research questions and
chi-square statistics to
test the hypotheses at 0.05
level of significance.
Findings from the study
revealed that BNARDA has a
total of only 280 staffs
made up of 209 (74.6 %)
males and 71 (25.4%) females
who uses the training and
visit (T&V) approach for
information dissemination,
Agricultural extension
services of BNARDA have four
influences on rural women’s
crop production practices in
Benue state, there are six
challenges encountered by
rural women in utilizing
BNARDA agricultural
extension services for crop
production in Benue state,
BNARDA agricultural
extension service has
significant impact on crop
production practices of
rural women and the
challenges encountered by
rural women in Benue State
in utilizing agricultural
extension services
significantly influence
their crop production
practices. It was
recommended amongst others
that Research institutes in
agriculture should use other
methods of information
dissemination to rural
farmers’ aside T &V approach
which has shortcomings.
Key words: Innovative
approach, extension
services, rural women, crop
production.
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