Revista de Economía y Negocios

The Role of Agricultural Extension Programs in the Development of the Agricultural Sector in Sierra Leone

Abstract

Mohamed Ibrahim Justice Ganawah, Alusine Kamara

Sierra Leone, which has three-quarters of its 72 million hectares of land suitable for crop production on a sustainable basis and is being classed by Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) as Low-Income Food Deficit Country (LIFDC) has 57.9% of households engaged in agricultural activities to include crop farming, livestock, poultry, fishing, hunting and exploitation of forest products.

A package of statistical tools for social scientists was used in data collection and analysis. The outcomes of these data when these statistical tools were employed reveal that all the most widely accepted extension services do impact positively agricultural output. Among the reported extension programs, general extension is the most paramount. This is due to the many small farm holders as almost all of them practice mixed cropping. The research also surfaced the challenges that are associated with the adoption of these programs. Among the responses, the most cited issue or challenge has to do with finance followed by inconsistence in monitoring and illiteracy. The rationale for this, as revealed by the search result, is that with adequate funding, demonstration materials could not be a problem. Essential teaching and communication materials would not be an issue too; logistics and recruitment and more training of extension workers would not be seen as challenges.

In the survey,the target population included farmers, extension agents and extension researchers, as well as the Agricltural Extension Services Division (AESD)-Ministry of Agricuture, Forestry and Food Security (MAFFS). Qualitative analyses and social sciences’ statistical tools were employed in the analysis of data collected. The challenges found were although illiteracy of farmers, problems with monitoring, inadequate funding and demonstration materials, etc; but first of, the results showed a positive relation between awareness about extension programs and their adoption . Further, all those implementing the techniques of extension experience much better yields with quality and now have much better living conditions. For those challenges, it is therefore recommended that access to information should be enhanced, much better communication skill training should be given to extension agents and more funds should be made avalable to the AESD-MAFFS.