Determination of factors affecting role performance of contact farmers in Orlu Local Government area of Imo State, Nigeria

Abstract

The study examined factors affecting role performance of contact farmers in Orlu Local Government Area of Imo State. It was designed to evaluate the qualities of contact farmers and their effectiveness in transferring proven technologies, ascertain the benefits of using contact farmers to disseminate innovation and determine the factors associated with the effectiveness of contact farmers. Fifty (50) respondents comprising both contact and non-contact farmers were randomly sampled and interviewed through structured interview schedule. Mean, simple percentages, Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) and factor analysis were adopted for data analysis. The null hypothesis was rejected which implied that the contact farmers were not perfect in all the quality attributes of delivering innovation. The confirmation was in view of the fact that the Fcalculated value of 24.68 was greater that the F-tabulated value of 2.84 at 5% level of probability.
Result further indicated that major determinants of contact farmer’s effectiveness in technology transfer included personal, motivational, endogenous environmental and exogenous environmental factors. The study recommends careful selection of contact farmers and adequate check to these factors to ensure positive effect in transferring proven technologies.

Keywords: Contact farmer, proven technologies, agricultural innovation, Nigeria