Study on Block Supervisors' Extension Skills in Bangladesh - A Case of Four Upazilas (Sub-District) in Kishorganj District -

摘要

The Department of Agricultural Extension (hereinafter, DAE) in Bangladesh is the main organization responsible for agricultural extension services in the rural areas. The Block Supervisors (hereinafter, BSs) are the grass-roots level agricultural extension personnel of the DAE mainly for transferring improved farming practices to the intended users, i.e. farmers. Each BS is responsible for providing agricultural extension services to 1,200 farm households. For this purpose, the DAE has invested hugeresources to develop the BSs' extension skills so that BSs can motivate and help farmers to adopt new crop variety and improved farming practices leading to more agricultural production and income. A vigorous and well-organized agricultural extension service is also an imperative need for increasing production (Genio & Siddique, 1982). It is also assumed in relation to agricultural production that the work efficiency of farmers is dependent on the BSs' skills on providing extension services. Many farmers, however, were beyond the influence of the agricultural extension services in Bangladesh (R. Reynar & T. Bruening, 1996). Moreover, about 35% of farm information losses were found to take place in the transit between BSs and farmers due to lack of BSs'adequate skills on extension services (Babu & Sinha, 1999). So, the investment of huge resources by the DAE for developing BSs' extension skills could not ensure the need-based agricultural extension services to farmers (Agricultural Extension Manual, 1999). In Bangladesh, BSs have great variation in the total tenure of their services. But, it is still unknown that which category of BSs in relation to their service tenure showed lack of extension skills. Therefore, this study aims: i) to clarify the present levels of BSs' extension skill, referring to a case of Kishorganj district and ii) to estimate the relationships between BSs' service tenure and their extension skill levels.