English

Abstract

In this paper the extension organization that promotes packages of technologies and practices was closely examined in line with its impact to mediate the use of household resources which determine the type of livelihood strategies perused at household level and their ultimate outcomes either in more secured or vulnerable livelihoods. For this study, a survey data were collected in 2006 from a randomly selected 65 participant and 27 dropout farm households living in Maqibassa and Dure-Bafano peasant associations in Awassa Zuria district, SNNPR, Ethiopia. Empirical estimation models like limited dependent variable and switching regression analyses methods were employed to analyse the data. Marginal effects of the independent variables were also considered in the limited dependent variable estimation approaches. Estimation results show that household participation status in the extension programme significantly depends on household head characteristics (like age and level of education), family size, household wealth status and duration of stay in the programme. Household food security status increases with program participation as the use of purchased external inputs and technical advice enhance crop yield for participant households in the extension programme. Marginalizing the poor rural households from the current extension programme aggravates rural livelihood insecurity and rural poverty for which it was meant as a remedy. This capitalizes the need to consider a paradigm shift from production oriented agricultural extension to livelihood extension approach which comprises agricultural and non-agricultural rural interventions with the objective of giving the opportunity to the poor rural farm households in securing their livelihoods by making use of available resources at hand. Key words: Livelihood extension, agricultural extension, participants, dropouts, food security.