Abstract

The National Irrigation Policy is based on boosting domestic agricultural production by using irrigation since rain fed production alone cannot meet demand. Achieving the goal of increasing agricultural production through harnessing of national irrigation potentials will depend on many factors; among which extension is likely to be one of the most important. For this purpose, this paper attempts to evaluate the extension delivery services for irrigated crop production within the Kano River Irrigation Project in Nigeria with the aim of proving their adequacy. Primary data were collected through the use of semi-structured questionnaires randomly administered to 80 farmers within the study area. Descriptive statistics were used to analyse it. The findings of the study indicate that the majority of the respondents find the extension services in the study area unavailable as neither the River Basin Development Authorities (RBDA), the Local Government Authorities (LGA), the Agricultural Development Projects (ADP) nor the Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) played significant extension delivery function in the area. Furthermore, most of the respondents do not belong to any farmer association or cooperative society. The Training and Visit system is the most preferred method of extension delivery in the study area and it is followed by the electronic media. However, the mobile phone is not considered a means of extension delivery by all of the respondents. The study concludes that the extension delivery system within the study area is grossly inadequate, and therefore, recommends the employment of more extension workers by the RBDA and the ADP; as well as encouraging and motivating the NGOs to reach out to the farmers.

Key words: Nigeria, extension services, Kano river irrigation project, RBDAs.