Gap Analysis of Farmers’ Capacity Building by Public and Private Agriculture Extension Sectors in Central Plain Valley of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan
Shahzad Malik* and Ayesha Khan
ABSTRACT
The present study was conducted in central valley of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa to evaluate the capacity building of farmers by public and private agriculture extension sectors. Three districts namely Peshawar, Mardan and Charsadda were selected purposively. In order to carry out the research, in the three districts of Peshawar, Mardan and Charsadda one tehsil was selected from each district i.e. Town-4 from Peshawar, Takhtbhai from Mardan and tehsil Charsadda from district Charsadda. Sample size for the present study was 270 respondents i.e. 90 respondents from each tehsil. Data were collected from respondents by using well-structured interview schedule. The data were analyzed by Statistical Package for Social Sciences V.20 (SPSS). Simple percentages and percentages were calculated whereas paired t-test was applied to compare gap/differences between capacity building of farmers offered by public and private extension services. It was found that the respondents praised private sector in capacity building regarding farm management (59.2%), selection of varieties (54.4%), selection of fertilizers (56.3%), and harvesting techniques (57.4%). There was highly significant (p≤0.01) difference among public and private services regarding capacity building of farmers in terms of farm management, improve marketing skills, harvesting techniques, organic farming, integrated pest management, seed rate ratio and orchard layout. Overall, there was a big gap in the performance of the public sector extension and private sector extension in capacity building. It is therefore, recommended that both the Public and Private Agriculture Extension Sector should work on joint venture basis and hold joint extension activities for the betterment of farming community.
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