Farmers’ Satisfaction with Agricultural Extension Service and Its Influencing Factors: A Case Study in North West Ethiopia

Authors
A. Elias 1
M. Nohmi 2
K. Yasunobu 2
A. Ishida 3
1 The United Graduate School of Agricultural Sciences, Tottori University, 4-101 Koyama-Minami Tottori-shi, 680-8553, Japan.
2 Faculty of Agriculture, Tottori University, Japan.
3 Faculty of Life and Environmental Science, Shimane University, Japan.
Abstract
Customer satisfaction is the most important element for developing and sustaining organizational priorities and practices. Thus, we examined farmers’ overall satisfaction with agricultural extension services and its determinants using data collected from 150 beneficiary farmers in North West Ethiopia. The findings show that about 55% of the interviewees were satisfied whereas 45% of them were dissatisfied with the extension services, implying that the program still has a lot of room for improvement. The empirical result based on ordered logit model revealed that perceived economic return, regular extension contact, family size and off-farm income were driving factors for farmers’ satisfaction. On the other hand, limited technology choices, high price of inputs, inconvenient loan system and undefined boundary between the extension service and the local politics were among the reasons given by dissatisfied farmers. Thus, from a policy perspective, the findings suggest a need to develop demand-driven extension service instead of the existing supply-driven one. Such service should be aiming to enhance the rewards from farming in order to maintain participation and farmers` satisfaction, which influence the sustainability of the extension program.

Keywords

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Journal of Agricultural Science and Technology
Volume 18, Issue 1
January and February 2016
Pages 39-53