Constraints on Farmers Access to Agricultural Information Delivery: A Survey of Rural Farmers in Yobe state, Nigeria

Abstract

This study examines the constraints on farmers' access to Agricultural information delivery: a Survey of rural farmers in Yobe state, Nigeria. The socio-economic characteristics of farmers were described, major sources of information to farmers were determined and various constraints faced by farmers on information delivery in the study area. In order to examine the constraints of farmers on their access to agricultural information delivery in Yobe state, all the three senatorial zones of the State were selected; taking one Local Government Area from each zone. Data were collected using well structured questionnaire and analysed through the use of descriptive statistics'. From the findings of the research, out of the 160 respondents 51% were male while 49 % were female with ages ranging from 20 to 65 with an average of 40 years. While 97% of the respondents were married, majority (80%) having household size of less than 10 members, whereas, 68% had formal education. Majority of the respondents has spent 4-6 years as members of cooperative societies. While (63%) of the respondents had between 10 and 20 years of experience on farming and 56% had no access to credit facilities. The result further showed that rural farmers in the study area obtained their sources of information through; television, radio, extension workers and ward heads. The results on sources of information to farmers have clearly indicated that extension agents had the highest percentage with 62 % over others. It was further revealed that, irrelevant information; delay on information delivery, extension workers' personalities, and lack of feedback mechanism were identified as constraints facing farmers in the study area. It thus, recommended that, rural farmers in the study area need to make use of electronic media as their major sources of information and government should provide relevant infrastructure available particularly; sources of power to enhance the usage of the media recommended. The extension agents in the study area should be more committed to their duties, more approachable and also improves their feedback mechanism promptly. More so, farmers should also be encouraged in the formation of co-operative groups so as to pull their resources together to improve their financial capability vis-a-vis improve their innovative skills in the course of group interaction