An expert, Mr Richard Ogundele, has advised the three levels of government to improve the ratio of agricultural extension workers to farmers in the country to enhance food production. He said that the current ratio of one extension worker to about 10,000 farmers was a threat to efforts at achieving food sufficiency in the country.
Ogundele is an intervention manager for Growth and Employment in State (GEMS), a project funded by the World Bank and the UK’s Department for International Development in Nigeria. He further stressed that effective agricultural extension services might be expensive but would boost food production, improve income and knowledge of farmers and create more jobs.
He said that agricultural extension workers were the bridge between farmers and research institutes, adding that they also functioned as the link between farmers and the government.
“The government must take extension service delivery seriously. The ratio between the extension workers and farmer is too low. We cannot have one extension worker to about 10,000 farmers or more, they need to break it down into smaller units.
“Ideally, we should have one extension worker to about 200 farmers within a cluster so that they can make impact by effectively teaching and monitoring the farmers’ progress,” he said.
The expert emphasised that information was vital to agricultural development programmes but farmers seldom feel the impact of agricultural innovations due to poor dissemination or lack of access to important information.
He noted that non-provision of agricultural information was a key factor that had greatly limited agricultural development in the country.
According to him, farmers should know how and when to cultivate; how to use improved seeds; when and how to apply fertiliser; when and how to harvest.
