Examining the relationship between farmers’ characteristics and access to agricultural extension: Empirical evidence from northern Uganda

ABSTRACT

Purpose

This study aimed at assessing how farmers’ access to agricultural extension is linked to farmers’ choice of extension service providers, and the crops and livestock activities engaged in at the farm level.

Methodology/Design/Approach

Cross-sectional data were collected from a sample of 342 farming households. Data analyses were conducted using the descriptive statistics and Probit binary regression model.

Findings

Results show that farmer access to agricultural extension depends on farmer district location, experience, group membership, use of pesticides, crop and livestock production diversity, and information source diversity. Furthermore, results show that gender, marital status, experience credit access, group membership, and livestock production diversity are the main drivers of farmers’ choice of service providers for an agricultural extension at the farm level. Lastly, leading determinants of access to agriculture for individual farm enterprises include farmer location (district), gender, marital status, education, experience, land owned, access to credit, group membership, ownership of mobile phones, and market information source diversity.

Practical Implications

Differentiated targeting of agricultural extension across farmer demographic structures and production objectives is not only influenced by varying factors but also important for ensuring that extension services are responsive for food and cash generation needs of local communities.

Theoretical Implications

This study deepens the literature on farmer access to agricultural extension with results demonstrating differences in factors that determine farmers’ choice of service providers for agricultural extension and the kind of crop and livestock activities engaged at the farm level.

Originality/value

This research is of high value as it presents empirical results on factors associated with the provision of agricultural extension services where there are many providers and where extension services is targeting different agricultural enterprises.

KEYWORDS:

• Agricultural extension
• crop enterprises
• livestock enterprises
• extension service provider
• smallholder

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 As part of the training curricula for students of bachelor of agriculture, the faculty of agriculture and Environment has been implementing the student field attachment where second year students of the then Bachelor of Agriculture (now renamed to Bachelor of Science in Agriculture after a revision) are attached to smallholder farmers so that they work with such farmers with technical backstopping from academic staff (Kalule et al. 2019). This program has been in place since inception of the faculty in 2005. The attachment period from 2005 to 2015 has been up a year. Every year, a new cohort of students are attached to the different smallholder farmers for the required period.

2 We consider farmer organization without disaggregating the gender composition of the organizations. The assessment of the gender composition of the farmer groups was outside the scope of the study as it would have required a different approach altogether.

3 The married farmers were mostly males (91% of all males, as opposed to 21% of all females). Most of the females in the study were widowed (58% of all females).

Additional information

Funding

This article resulted from the project titled ‘Strengthening University Outreach and Agri-Entrepreneurship Training for Community Transformation in Northern Uganda’ supported by the Regional Universities Forum for Capacity Building in Agriculture (RUFORUM), Kampala, Uganda [grant number RU 2014 NG 15].

Notes on contributors

Daniel Micheal Okello

Daniel Micheal Okello is an agricultural economist, with research focus on the sustainability and efficiency of smallholder systems and their participation in markets, and how agricultural extension delivery can enhance this efficiency and sustainability. He is a part-time assistant lecturer at Gulu University. He is also a PhD fellow of Agriculture and Applied Biosciences at Gulu University.

Irine Akite

Irine Akite is a PhD fellow of of Agriculture and Applied Biosciences in the faculty of agriculture and Environment, Gulu University and a part-time assistant lecture at Gulu University. Her research interest is gender inclusivity in agricultural extension delivery. She is also interested in the inter-relations between gender and performance of the agri-food value chain and agri-enterprises development.

Francis Atube

Francis Atube is a lecturer in the department of Science Education (Agriculture) in the faculty of Education and Humanities, Gulu University. He is also a PhD fellow of Agriculture and Applied Biosciences in the faculty of agriculture and Environment, Gulu University. His research focuses on integrating climate change adaptation to agricultural extension delivery.

Stephen Wamala Kalule

Stephen Wamala Kalule holds a PhD in Agricultural and Rural Innovation from Makerere University, Uganda. He is also a Senior Lecturer and researcher at Gulu University, Uganda. His specialization and research interests are in the areas of agricultural policy and trade analysis, agricultural finance, agricultural marketing, and university-community engagement and innovation.

Duncan Ongeng

Duncan Ongeng is a full professor of food security and community nutrition in the Department of Food Science and Postharvest Technology at Gulu University. He has special research interests in integrating nutritional sensitivity in farming systems and agri-value chains.