Access To Extension And Poverty Alleviating Strategies of Farm Families In Adamawa State, Nigeria

Abstract

The strategies employed by farm families in alleviating poverty in the face of their level of access to extension information are thefocus of this study. Data were collectedfrom 120householdheads offarmfamiliesfrom Adamawa state. Results showed that 60percent of the household heads have low access to extension information, with the most common sources being the VEAs (73%) and i/formal organizations (66%). The deregulation of the economy has affected expenditure on extension and thus reduced the number ofextension agents. The results revealed that thepoverty alleviating strategies employedby the respondents include cultivating several crops, trading, brewing oflocal drinks, leasing out offarmland andcraft making. Resultsfurther showedno significant relationship between respondents’ membership of informal organizations and the poverty alleviating strategies they employed while a significant relationship exist between respondents’ access to extension and the poverty alleviating strategies they employed (X2 = 3.68;p =0.04). This indicated a linkage between respondents’ access to extension atid the poverty alleviating strategies they employed. There is therefore the need to improve the farmfamilies’ access to extension in effort at assisting them alleviatepoverty.

Keywords

• Extension
• pverty alleviation
• access