A professor of Agricultural
Extension at the University of Ibadan, Prof. Ademola Oladele, recently said that the number of public extension agents to farming families was inadequate.
Oladele told newsmen in Lagos that the ideal number is one agent to 500 farming families.
He said that presently, about 3,000 farming families had one agent, adding that more private extension agents could be fused into the
service.
“You cannot do extension work when you have the ratio given to farmers as high as we have in Nigeria currently.
“The recommended ratio of extension worker to farming families is 500 to 800 to one. But what we have now is about 3,000 families to one extension agent.
“So, the extension agent cannot perform adequately when he has so many to cover. Another issue is that as the old extension workers are retiring, new ones are not being employed,’’ he said.
Oladele also said that most extension services present now, were run and funded by international agencies that had projects in the country.
He said that there was not enough government presence in the area of extension services which needed modern equipment.
“There is no modern equipment to work with. As a matter of fact, the present extension services are being run by international agencies that have projects around here.
“Government should come up with programmes that will make extension services vibrant again.
“When extension is not sound and is not rightly structured, we will be unable to get most agricultural innovations that are available to transform productivity,’’ he said.
The professor said that the University of Ibadan was also trying to train graduates to work as private extension agents.
He said that this was not in isolation to the public extension workers as they played a very vital role in extension services.
“At our own level, we are trying to train our graduates to be able to work as private extension agents so that we will not have to depend upon the public extension workers.
“I am not saying that we are going to work without them, no, because they know the terrain better but we will work in collaboration to be able to bring about the needed agricultural development.
“Extension service, what I call public extension service is very weak in Nigeria and it is a major problem that is creating a lot of constraint on agricultural development in Nigeria.
“I have learnt not to depend on government for every development intervention that should come up, our policy makers should make policies that are very vibrant in extension work,’’ Oladele said.
Highlighting who should be extension agents, the don said that they should be Ordinary National Diploma Holders (OND) as well as Higher National Diploma Holders (HND).
“Extension officers, ideally, should be those trained to do the work, starting from people with a minimum of OND and HND certificate in agriculture extension.
“We have so many colleges of agriculture that should be able to produce extension workers. It is not as if we are short of qualified extension workers but they are underutilised by government,’’ he said.
Oloadele also lauded the Agriculture Transformation Agenda (ATA) by the past administration, saying that it would have performed better if states had participated duly.