Abstract

Agriculture and forestry are generally considered as parallel activities where different institutions are working for rural people. The mountainous region of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province (KP) of Pakistan makes an interesting case study because good forest cover is appeared and farming is an important component of local livelihood system. This study presents the findings from the field survey of 48 extension services personnel (24 from each) of agriculture and forest departments. The main objectives of the study were to identify the linkages between agricultural and forestry extension services and to find out the factors hindering the effectiveness of linkages. A 3-point Likert scale was used to find out the frequency of the extension services offered for crops, trees and fruit trees by agricultural and forestry extension. Descriptive analysis was used to describe the frequencies, mean and standard deviation of the demographic characteristics of the respondents. Wilcoxon-Mann-Whitney U-test for independent nonparametric sample was also used for finding the association among the areas of practices and the extension services. The results show that fruit trees are the common area of practices where both organizations provide extension services to the farming community. Both departments are also carrying-out the above services for fruit trees in particular while crops and other trees in general. Weak formal and in-formal contacts between agricultural and forestry extension services were found. It was concluded that by implementing common activities for fruit trees, linkages between agricultural and forestry extension services can be established. The paper also identifies differences in age, educational background, less number of field visits and weak formal linkages of field staff as the factors hindering the effectiveness of extension services.

Key words: Agricultural extension, forestry extension, linkages, common practices, fruit trees.