AN INVESTIGATION INTO the AWARENESS REGARDING the SOURCE of INFORMATION AMONG the FARMING COMMUNITY THROUGH PUBLIC SECTOR and Ngos in NWFP, PAKISTAN
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Sarhad J. Agric. Vol.25, No.3, 2009 AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE AWARENESS REGARDING THE SOURCE OF INFORMATION AMONG THE FARMING COMMUNITY THROUGH PUBLIC SECTOR AND NGOs IN NWFP, PAKISTAN IFTIKHAR AHMED*, MUHAMMAD IDREES* and NAEEM SHAH** * Department of Agricultural Extension Education & Communication, NWFP Agricultural University, Peshawar, Pakistan ** Institute of Development Studies, NWFP Agricultural University, Peshawar, Pakistan ABSTRACT Farmer's use of different sources of information is an important way in the adoption-diffusion research in extension education. The required data was collected from three hundred randomly selected farmers from ten union councils of Kohat district during 2007. The data included all types of respondents i.e. age below 30 years(26%), 30 to 40 years (24.67%) and above 40 years (49.33%),with educational status illiterate (39.67%), literate up to primary (15%), middle (27.33%), metric and above (18%) and having land below 20 acres (50%), 20 to 40 acres (16.67%) and above 40 acres (33.33%). Many studies called awareness as pre-requisite to every technology and the first step toward adoption. It is generally believed that the source of knowledge is an important tool for awareness and guidance of respondents towards adoption to modern technologies .A variety of sources of information would make it easy to the farming community in consulting and providing opportunities to contact different sources of knowledge for awareness and increasing their interest. In this paper we look at the relative significance of various sources of available information a factors effecting the role of Public Sector and NGO in NWFP, Pakistan .Farmers are getting information from print media, institutional sources, NGOs, local mobilizer, hujra and pesticides and seed dealers. Depicted from the results, the respondents prioritized the source of information as Public extension department (1st), NGO (2nd) and radio (3rd). Key Words: Investigation, Awareness, Sources of information, NGOs, Community, NWFP, Pakistan Citation: Ahmed, I., M. Idrees and N. Shah. 2009. An investigation into the awareness regarding the source of information among the farming community through public sector and NGOs in NWFP, Pakistan. Sarhad J. Agric. 25(3): 487-493. INTRODUCTION Pakistan’s population increases at the rate of approximately 2.7% per annum that necessitates a substantial increase in agriculture productivity if it intends to reach its goals for self-sufficiency. The bulk of this task falls squarely on the public sector as well as Non Governmental Organizations (NGOs). In Pakistan, where agriculture dominates the economy with a contribution of 20.9% to country Gross Domestic Product (GDP), 43.4% to the labor force and about 75% to the foreign exchange earnings in the form of raw and semi finished agricultural goods; In addition to all this agriculture is the main source of livelihood for 66% of the rural population and provides raw material for local industries like sugar, textile, leather and cigarette etc., (Economic Survey, 2007). Pakistan is far behind in terms of production and per acre yield as compared to other wheat producing countries, (7th in the world). One can not deny the importance of the four dimensions of agricultural knowledge system (AKS) i.e. research, education, extension and end users (Farmers). NWFP is sheltering a population of more than 20 million people. The major portion of this population (83%) is dwelling in rural areas putting a tremendous pressure on land resources. To cater for the livelihood needs of this mammoth population, the province possesses 10.17 million hectares of land. However, the cultivable area is 2.75 million hectare. Out of cultivable area only 1.8 million hectare is cultivated where as 1.08 million hectare is cultivable waste. The major chunk of cultivated land is rain fed which constitute 49% of the cultivated area. The farmers in Pakistan are mostly illiterate and conservative. In order to bring an effective change in their behavior, a consistent and constant effort is needed to get across agricultural information. Agricultural Extension Iftikhar Ahmed et al. Awareness regarding the source of information among the farming community… 488 Service functions to bring positive change in the attitude of the farmers towards the latest agricultural technologies. It aims to train rural farmers how to improve their living standard by their own efforts through efficient utilization of all available resources. In Pakistan, agricultural development is mainly the task of the provincial governments. There are several areas and issues which fall beyond the provinces approach. Consequently, there is an interest in self- help initiatives and in partnerships between communities, Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) and the private sector to share the responsibility for sustainable development. MATERIALS AND METHODS The research site is (Kohat and Lachi tehsil) situated in the North West Frontier Province (NWFP) one of four provinces in Pakistan. The NWFP is administratively divided into 24 sub districts. Each of these units is further sub divided into smaller areas. Kohat district, the area in which this study is undertaken is separated into 2 units- known as tehsils. Both tehsils, Kohat and Lachi are constituting the research area. District Kohat covers an area of approximately 295054 hectares .Within this area 562644 people reside in 32 Union Councils. Agriculture provides the primary means of support for the residents of the district. Nearly 70% is the farmers in the study area are engaged with agriculture in one way or the other. Sample The sample of this study consisted three hundred randomly selected respondents from ten union councils, 5 each from tehsil Kohat and tehsil Lachi. All respondents were male land owners actively engaged in farming. Sampling Procedure The sampling was done in two phases. In phase 1, all of the union councils which comprised the Kohat and Lachi tehsils were identified from local government records. The total numbers of union council in tehsil Kohat were 20, while 12 union councils were in tehsil lachi. It was initially decided to select randomly 5 union councils from each tehsil. In case of tehsil lachi, it was done accordingly but in tehsil Kohat, there were 5 union councils which were having complete urban setup. Therefore, it was decided that in Kohat tehsil, selection of union councils would be made purposively. Union councils were selected in the primary sampling units to save the time and money. In the second phase, the author and two enumerators went to the sampled union councils for recording the complete information about the list of sampling units in order to construct a sample frame. With the help of the local government personnel of union council and other knowledgeable persons, the author and enumerators compiled the list of all the farmers who are currently involved in farming. It was expected that the researchers would have access to farmers’ record pertaining to land from revenue department. However it was found that the roles were outdated and also could not tell the exact status of the farming community. Resultantly, these roles were not considered as a reliable source of information thus, new roles prepared by the author to ensure complete information about farmers. It is recorded that there were 300-350 or more farmers in each union council and from each union council 30 farmers were selected randomly. Since the numbers of farmers do not vary widely from union council to union council, the sampling was roughly proportional to the number of farmers. Preparation of Questionnaire In view of the objective of the study, a preliminary interview schedule was prepared for the collection of the data. A panel of three experts in the discipline of agricultural extension tested the instrument for its face validity. A number of changes were suggested by the experts pertaining to format of interview schedule and questions. All the suggestions made by the experts were incorporated accordingly. Then the instrument was tested for its content validity by a panel of 5 experts. After a long discussion, judgment was made using the criteria of clarity of the questions, specifically of the questions directly addressing the objective of the study. Data Collection The face to face interaction with the respondents not only provided the opportunity to establish good rapport with them but also to obtain high rate of response, which was 100 %. Besides asking written questions, farmers’ opinion, suggestion and experiences were also recorded. Sarhad J. Agric. Vol.25, No.3, 2009 489 Data Analysis/Processing Logically developed Tables were made after data analysis by using statistical software (SPSS). The data was reported in terms of frequencies and percentages. A chi-square test was used to test the statistical significance of the association between two attributes (variables). For convenience, the chi-square test is defined as: rc()Oe− 2 χ 2 = ij ij ∑∑ e ij==11 ij ………………………………………………………………………………. (1) 2 Which under the null hypothesis (H0) follows a χ -distribution with (r-1) (c-1) degrees of freedom. In equation (1), Oij and eij are the observed and expected frequencies y of cell in ith row and jth column, respectively. It is important to mention that under the null hypothesis for each pair of the tested attributes, it was assumed that there is no significant association between the two variables i.e. the two variables are independent. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION Extension is the organized exchange of information and the purposive transfer of skills (Nagel, 1997). Many studies called awareness as pre-requisite to every technology and the first step toward adoption. It is generally believed that the source of knowledge is an important tool for awareness and guidance of respondents towards adoption to modern technologies. A variety of sources of information would make it easy to the farming community in consulting and providing opportunities to contact different sources of knowledge for awareness and increasing their interest.