Rice farmers preferred extension teaching methods for capacity building in Kwara State, Nigeria

Abstract

The study investigated rice farmers preferred teaching methods for capacity building. A three stage sampling procedure was used to select 130 small scale rice farmers. Results revealed that the average age of farmers was 38.97 years. The commonly used extension methods by rice farmers include farm and home visit (88.42%), management training plot (93.11%), small plot adoption techniques (60.12%), on farm adaptive research (68.13%), farmers field Days (54.62%) and radio (13.85%). Seventy-five percent of the rice farmers preferred MTP due to its size, 72% for acquisition of new skills, 65% and 61% for enhance capacity on integrated pest and weed management respectively. Results show that on the average 93.11% of the rice farmers agreed that characteristics of the teaching methods such as size, period of stay on the field, allowance for participation and evaluation made MTP more relevant than other methods for capacity building of rice farmers. It was recommended that extension organizations should promote the use of MTP as it allows farmers to acquire skills in existing and emerging rice production innovations.

Keywords: skill acquisition,’ participation, and evaluation