Impact of WSDC Extension Activities on Farmer's Change of Technical Practices of Sorghum Crop

Abstract

This study was conducted in Western Savannah Development Corporation (WSDC). The main objective of the study was to assess the impact of agricultural extension activities in Western Savannah Development Corporation on farmers’ knowledge and practices of some of the recommended improved sorghum crop technologies, and exploring the efficiency of extension methods employed by the project, identifying some farmers’ socio-economic& demographic characteristics and some relative advantages of the innovations. The field survey was carried out as research method. A multi-Stage Stratified random sampling procedure was employed in this study. Thirteen extension villages were purposively selected from four Districts of the Southern Darfur state namely: Central District, South West District, Southern District and Eastern District. Total sample size was 132 members participating in the project activities and 132 7 members non – participants in the project for comparison, ten farmers were randomly selected from each selected village . Farmers were interviewed using questionnaire for collecting the data . Statistical package (SPSS) were used to analyze the data. Descriptive statistics, frequency distribution, and percentages were used to profile the sample. Chi-square test at level of significance of 0.05 or less were used to detect the dependency among the study variables and change of knowledge and practices of the recommended improved sorghum crop technologies packages. The most important findings were: 1/The extension activities executed by the Western Savannah Development Corporation ( WSDC) successfully advocated the sowing of sorghum by making better use of recommended improved seeds varieties, seeds spacing, seeds dressing, sowing date, seed rate , harvesting time, while it was weak in advocating the use of recommended supplementary irrigation and thinning. 2/Higher percentage of participants knew about recommended improved sorghum seeds compared to non - participants. More than half participants adopted the recommended improved sorghum seeds compared to non - participants.. 3/Change of knowledge of recommended improved sorghum seeds varieties was found dependent on level of education, household income, degree of complexity of usage of technology, and compatibility with agricultural system. 4/Change of practices of recommended improved sorghum seeds varieties was found dependent on degree of complexity of usage of technology and accessibility. 5/Extension agents were the main source of information for adopters of sorghum innovations and had positive impact on changed behavior of the farmers. The most important recommendations were: 1/Rreasonable number of extension agents should be maintained for effective messages to become available to vast majority of farmers in the project. 2/ Extension activities may involve progressive farmers as contact farmers passing on ideas and messages to other farmers. 3/ Both extension and research may involve in joint strategy of research and technology development and transfer to emphasis on research on farmer's field. 8 4/More efforts are needed to transfer the released technologies to improve productivity, production, returns and lower the cost of production. 5/ Federal and State governments may seek foreign financiers or donors to support the activities of the programmes. 6/Provision of credit services for better accessibility of farm inputs. 7/Although there is still need to search the reason which it was weak in advocating the use of recommended supplementary irrigation, so the study recommends that researches in the future must be conducted to reveal the reasons behind that.