Abstract

The study assessed arable crop farmers’ perception of extension agents’ activities in Yewa North Local Government Area of Ogun State, Nigeria. A total of 150 respondents were randomly selected and interviewed through structured interview schedule. Descriptive statistics such as frequency distribution tables and percentages were used while chi-square analysis was used to test the hypothesis.  The results revealed that majority (60.0%) of the respondents were between the age brackets of 40 and 49 years and had secondary education (50.0%), about 57.3% were married, mainly belonged to the male folks (84.0%) and were Muslims (62.0%).  About 74.4% had household size of 10 members and above, had more than 20 years of farming experience (59.2%) and had farm size of less than 5 hectares (78.0%). About 48% were full time farmers, sourced finance for farming activities through personal savings (36.7%), had access to cooperative loan for agricultural production (32.0%) and were aware of extension agents` activities (79.7%). Respondents had favourable perception towards extension activities.  Chi-square analysis showed that there were positively significant relationship between the socio-economic characteristics such as sex (χ² = 15.61, p<0.05); marital status (χ² = 8.08 p<0.05); education (χ² = 17.74, p<0.05) and farm size (χ² = 3.69, p<0.05) of respondents and performance of extension agents. The study recommended that government should assist farmers by making improved agricultural inputs available at a subsidized cost for farmers.

Key Words: Arable crop farmers, Extension agents, Farmers’ perception, Performance