Abstract:
Farmers face a continued challenge in accessing agricultural information and technologies
due to several economic, social, cultural and environmental factors. This study set out to
assess Farmers’ Access to Agricultural Extension Services in Aweday Rural Kebeles. The
specific objectives were to assess the status of farmers’ access to agricultural extension
services and to evaluate the factors that influence their access to agricultural extension
services in Aweday. The sampling was done in two stages. In the first stage, three kebeles were
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purposively selected based on the farming systems (kchat dominant, cereal dominant and
mixed farming system). In the second stage, 120 samples were selected from each sample
kebele proportionally to the size of the households. Interview and three focus group discussion
were used to collect data. Descriptive statistics frequency, percentage and binary logistic
regression model were used for analyzing the data. Among the 120 respondents, 51 of them
had access to agricultural extension services while the remaining 69 did not have access to
agricultural extension services. Majority, 78 (65.0%) of the respondents were males and the
remaining 42 (35.0%) of them were females. The mean age of respondents who had and did
not have access to agricultural extension services was 32.86 years and 32.14 years
respectively. Average family size of those respondents who had and did not have access to
agricultural extension services was 7.06 and 6.01 respectively. The model result indicated that
age of respondents, education level, farm size, income generating activity and attitude towards
agricultural extension workers were the significant variables affecting farmers’ access to
agricultural extension services. The elder households were familiar with the overall
agricultural extension services and the systems that were being implemented for many years.
As a result, it is important to have the elder and religious people to be involved in the delivery
of agricultural extension services in the area. The higher the education level of household
heads, their tendency to understand, search and use agricultural extension services for their
agricultural production increases. Strengthening educational capacity of whole community
and arranging a way of access to adult education should be designed. The larger size of
cultivated land a farmer has, then the interest and effort to cultivate from the land and get
more products could grow. So, on-farm support and guidance for the farmers in the study
area is important. The participation of farmers in income generating activities helps to
increase their access to agricultural extension services. The attitude of farmers about the
personality, performance and other aspects of the development agent is a basic factor for
farmers to access agricultural extension services. Equipping the development agents with
sufficient awareness and knowledge to serve the community and using feedbacks from farmers
to improve the services is important.
