ABSTRACT

The study sought to examine the relationship between Agricultural Extension Delivery Techniques and Food Production in Akwa Ibom State. Correlational research design was adopted. The study had eleven purposes, eleven research questions were answered and five hypotheses tested at 0.05 level of significance. The population of the study was 5200 subjects comprising of thousand registered farmers and two hundred agricultural extension agents serving in Akwa Ibom State. The total sample size was 371 estimated from the entire population using Taro Yameni formular, while simple random sampling technique was used to select the respondents from the three agricultural zones. Two sets of structured questionnaires titled: Agricultural Extension Delivery Techniques Questionnaire (AEDTQ) and Food Production Questionnaire (FPQ) were used for data collection. The instrument contained sixty (60) items (50 for the various extension delivery techniques and 10 for food production) placed on a four-rating scale of Very High extent with 4-points, High extent with 3-points, low extent with 2 points and Very Low extent with 1-point. The instrument was subjected to face validation by three research experts. The reliability of .67 and .63 were obtained using Cronbalch alpha coefficient which showed that the instruments were reliable for the study. Data were collected by the researcher with the help of four research assistants. Out of the 371 copies of the instruments distributed, 362 copies (98%) of the questionnaire were retrieved and analyzed. Mean, standard deviation and Pearson Product Moment (PPM) correlation were used to answer the research questions, while regression was used to test hypotheses. It was found from the result of the study that farmers had high level of exposure to all the extension delivery techniques identified and there were strong positive correlation between farmers’ exposure to the extension delivery techniques and the level of food production in Akwa Ibom State. Based on the findings of the study, it was recommended that the government through the agricultural extension agents should make policies and programs that will enable farmer to easily access information through the mass media such as radio, televisions, newspapers social media etc. By allocating sufficient time for free radio and television program aimed at reaching the rural farmers due to the role mass media delivery technique play in food production as found by this study, Extension agents should ensure they create conducive, adequate, and enabling environment for exhibitions during green field show so that farmers and other members of the public will be exposed to new agricultural produce.