Communication for better agriculture: The case of outreach to small-scale farmers on farming as a business in Kabompo District

Abstract

This study investigated Communication for Better Agriculture: A case of outreach to farmers on farming as a business in Kabompo District with the view to establish whether the communication strategies used to impart business knowledge and skills to farmers were effective. This was an important pedestal for addressing the problem of small-scale farmers’ poverty and would be backed by farmers’ adoption of the farming as a business innovation.A mixed design methodology was used to collect information from 57 respondents who included the Agricultural Management Staff; the Extension Workers; and the Farmers, the first two of which were purposively selected being the custodians of required information. Stratified random sampling was used to select farmer respondents as the researcher required their equal participation based on gender. Data collection instruments for the Management and Extension Workers were in-depth interviews and a Questionnaire respectively, while a Focus Group Discussion was used to collect data from the farmers.According to findings, participatory approaches were used by Extension Workers to teach farmers business skills whose main topic covered was the subject of business planning. The importance of planning in every undertaking cannot be overemphasised – after all people plan all the time. As they say; “if you fail to plan, you plan to fail.” Interestingly, despite the presence of this conducive environment for farmer prosperity, it was found that these small-scale farmers did not adopt the “agriculture as a business” innovation. The study also revealed poor monitoring mechanisms within the agricultural extension system.Although appropriate approaches, messages, and communication channels were used to deliver the business aspect of agriculture to small-scale farmers in the study area, there was no real adoption of the innovation among the farmers in the study area. A robust monitoring mechanisms is critical in programme implementation and this study revealed poor post-training monitoring activities in the area. For this reason, the study concludes that, as things stand, persistent poverty among farmers in Kabompo can be ascribed to, among other things, insufficient monitoring activities from the extension services, which discourages adopter capacities in the farming community. As a way forward, therefore, the agricultural curriculum in all Agricultural Colleges and Universities in the country needs to be refocused so as to incorporate the agricultural extension methodologies training modules with a robust monitoring system as part of the training package and not just as an add-on in the practice of agricultural extension. In addition, further study on ways and means of strengthening these monitoring services at grassroots farming systems is suggested because of the findings of this study.