EFFECTIVENESS OF PUBLIC AGRICULTURE EXTENSION SERVICE DELIVERY IN THE CONTEXT OF LOCAL MUNICIPALITIES, NEPAL

Abstract

Nepal’s agriculture extension service delivery has been restructured in accordance with federal constitutional provisions. The constitutional provisions promise good governance and service delivery to the people, ensuring equal and easy access to services and to make public administration clean, competent, impartial, transparent, responsible, and participative. In this context, this research was design to study cereal growing farmers’ perception on effectiveness of local public agriculture extension service in three municipalities of Rupandehi district selecting 120 respondents. Non-experimental survey research design was employed using Likert scale to measure perception of farmers. The overall effectiveness index of selected extension service was assessed using five parameters. Public extension services in the study site were viewed as being effective with relative index value of 0.71. Participation of farmer in decision making, involving them in planning was found to be satisfactory. Although, there appeared the issue of affordability of service with index value (0.51), timeliness (0.53), and long documentation procedure (0.54) with the obtained extension services. However, frequency of extension officials on visiting farmers field, farmers education and their household size have positive and significant impact on cereal production at study site. Moreover, there is need of restructuring service delivery in local level considering these underlying factors.