FARMERS’ SATISFACTION ON THE ADVISORY SERVICES OF DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURAL EXTENSION

Abstract

Agricultural advisory services have a tremendous potential to improve agricultural productivity and increase farmers‘ income through transfer and facilitation of knowledge, skills and technologies. Assessing farmers‘ satisfaction on agricultural advisory services is essential for developing agricultural extension programs that comply with farmers‘ needs. This study sought to assess farmers‘ satisfaction on the advisory services of Department of Agricultural Extension (DAE), to describe the selected predictors of the farmers related to their satisfaction, to explore the contribution of the selected predictors of the farmers to their satisfaction on DAE advisory services to identify the areas for improvement. To measure farmers‘ satisfaction a scale was developed based on 35 items of satisfaction (25 on Technical services and 10 on Functional services of DAE). Data were collected from randomly selected 358 farmers from eight (8) upazillas of four (4) regions (Dhaka, Khulna, Sylhet and Rajshahi) of Bangladesh by using a pre-tested interview schedule during the period of 1 st August, 2021 to 30 th November, 2021. Descriptive statistics and step wise multiple regression, path analysis were used to analyze the data obtained. Findings indicated that majority (79.1%) of the farmers had medium satisfaction on overall satisfaction of the advisory services of DAE. Farmers also had medium satisfaction on both technical (74.6%) and functional (82.7%) services of DAE. Out of 35 items of satisfaction farmers were highly satisfied on five (05) items, moderately satisfied on 24 items and low satisfied on six (06) items. Step wise multiple regression analysis indicated that farmers‘ extension contact, innovativeness, farming experience and education had significant contribution to their satisfaction on the advisory services of DAE. The standardized regression co-efficient of these four (4) variables formed the equation and were significant. It might be assumed that whatever contribution was there, it was due to these four (04) variables that combinedly explained 28.1 percent of the total variation. Path analysis indicated that out of these four (04) contributory predictors of the farmers extension contact (0.933) had the highest total indirect effect followed by innovativeness (0.821), education (0.214) and farming experience (0.09) on farmers‘ satisfaction on advisory services of DAE. The indirect effects of each of these four (04) variables were channeled through other three variables. Attempt was taken to seek suggestions from the farmers to improve their satisfaction on DAE Advisory services. DAE need to address the low and moderate satisfied items to increase the satisfaction of the farmers as suggested by them.