Hi, what is considered the ideal ratio of farmer:extension officer in the subtropics, especially the semi arid subtropics?
Dearest Gloria,
the recommended farmer - extension officer ratio ranges from 10-50 farmers to one extension officers and, this depends on farm sizes and distance this agents have travel to the farmer's farm. However these extension agents are faced with challenges beyond their control for effective performance of the sector. These challenges include; lack of mobility (motor bikes/cars) and logistics (field aprons, field note books, vehicles) and irregular transport fare to travel and do farm visits; no access roads to farmers farm; no risk allowance; lack of demonstration farms; no maintenance allowance for already acquired vehicles; farmers inability to form lasting/viable farmer groups; farmer inability to adopt technology; no one structured stakeholder forum; lack of research-extension farmer linkages; long distance to farming land as a result of urbanization; extension farmer ratio in Ghana now is poor 1: 3000. Veterinary farmer ratio is also very poor 1: 5000. As demonstrated , these challenges have put more pressure on extension or veterinary agents to deliver quality services. Extension services provision and information delivery to crop and livestock producers has declined in the last decade.
for more information, you can read this paper: Systemic intervention to tackle the constraints and challenges facing stakeholders and the performance of the agricultural sector in Ghana
In a community-based paid extension model of Bangladesh 1:200 ratio of veterinarian and livestock farmers has been proved successful.
Haroon Sseguya, please do guide me where I can find the article on that ratio and read further on the topic. Quite interesting and pertinent question by the prime mover
How to describe the value of expo(b) in Logistic Regression? Would any one please send me an evidence?
It depends on logistics and density of farmers. In India the ratio is 1: 1400
But in some countries in Africa the recommended ratio is 1: 350
It varies from country to country, and even within the country due to the variation of extension facilities and accessibility of farmers. It needs country-specific or area-specific studies to set the standard.
Extension services the world-over requires mobility (means of transport). When this is well catered for, a staff:Farmer ratio of 1:800 will deliver effective services.
The ratio of extension workers to farmers varies based on topography, the weather of the agricultural seasons, farmers` settlement pattern, availability of road, farming system, cropping pattern, and density of farming population. Though it is difficult to indicate a right ratio based on the factors, where population density is high, many farmers live closely, and a few main crops dominate in the area, the ratio of extension workers to farmers could be 1:800; in the area where there is good farmer accessibility, 1:1200; where the farming population is dispersed or large farms, 1:500; and where the farming population sparsely distributed or mountainous areas, 1:300 (Benor et al., D., 1984).
@Workneh Abebe Wodajo, your parameters for estimating the the ratio are consistent with the requirements for sub tropical conditions.
In Tanzania, the recommendation by the Ministry of Agriculture is every village should have one Crop and one Vet. extension officer. However, villages are not homogeneous and some have more farmers than others. One village in Tanzania can have 500 to 1500 farmers.
Hi,
In South Africa the average recommended is 1:250 but the figure varies up to 1:500 depending on the type and scale of farming commodity involved such crop farming, livestock farming, etc.
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