Effects of Agricultural Extension Education on Promotion of Horticultural Farming: A case of Kaiti Farmers' Association

Abstract

Agricultural Extension occupies a central role in instilling information that increases farmers’ productivity; this is based on the fact that information is the most critical element in farming since it empowers them to be able to make the right decisions. This research therefore sought to investigate how farmers in Kaiti Sub-County are influenced by the extension services. The objectives of the study included: To establish the effects of information dissemination by extension officers on horticultural farming; discuss the effects of frequency of contact by extension officers with farmers on horticultural farming and assess the effects of monitoring activities by extension officers on horticultural farming in Kaiti Sub-County, Makueni County. The study adopted a descriptive case study design and specifically targeted Kaiti Horticultural farmers aassociation and eextension officers in Kaiti Sub-County who were selected purposively. The study also adopted both qualitative and quantitative approaches in which questionnaires and interviews were administered to the respondents. A total of 88 farmers were selected using purposive sampling. Similarly, for every ten farmers, one extension officer was selected randomly, hence there was a total of 97 respondents that were targeted. 97. Quantitative Data was analyzed with the aid of the computer software sstatistical package for social sciences (SPSS) in which graphs, percentages and figures were used for illustration of data. At the same time, qualitative information was analyzed by grouping the collected information into themes and then it was described in prose using verbatim and narration. The aim was to corroborate the quantitative data. It was established that as much as there are deliberate efforts to enhance extension education services in Kaiti Sub-County, there are still gaps in terms of accessibility of the field officers as well as the frequency of meetings between the farmers and the extension officers and this has had an impact of not being able to reach out many farmers. At the same time, it was also established that monitoring and evaluation of the disseminated information is still low and it needs to be enhanced in order to have a more sustainable effect. This was in tandem with inferential results which established that frequency of contacts (r = 0.911, p < 0.05), monitoring activities (r = 0.925, p < 0.05) and promotion (r = 0.953, p < 0.05) were strongly correlated with information dissemination. Frequency of contacts strongly and positively correlated with both monitoring activities (r = 0.855, p < 0.05) and promotion of horticultural farming (r = 0.954, p < 0.05). Finally, monitoring activities positively and significantly correlated with promotion of horticultural farming (r = 0.931, p < 0.05). It is anticipated that the study will benefit not only policy makers, but also the farmers in Kaiti and other areas as well as the National and County governments. It is recommended that officers should be facilitated with adequate means of transport to increase coverage, while farmers ought to be encouraged to utilize agricultural extension services. Lastly more research needs to be done to ascertain how best agricultural extension can be utilized to promote agricultural farming in the rural areas.