Cost Sharing As An Alternative Approach To Financing Agricultural Technology Transfer In Nasarawa State, Nigeria.
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The study ascertained cost sharing as an alternative approach to financing agricultural technology transfer in Nasarawa State, Nigeria. Interview schedule/questionnaire as well as Focus Group Discussion (FGD) were used to collect data from a sample of sixty-two (62) farmers and sixtyeight (68) public extension agents (PEAs). Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics such as frequency and percentage. Result shows that majority of the respondents were married, about 60% of the farmers were males, while all (100%) public extension agents were males, middle aged, having a fairly large household size. Government was the major (70.3% and 70.9%), source of funding for agricultural extension service as indicated by the farmers and PEAs, respectively. Majority (64.6%) of the farmers contributed to cost-sharing practices in the area of provision of accommodation to public extension agents. A greater percentage (81.3%) of the farmers and public extension agents (80.7%) were of the view that inadequate budgetary allocation is a major problem associated with agricultural extension funding in the study area. Other problems identified by farmers (12.0%) (4.0%) and public extension agents (10.9%) (4.8) were bureaucracy and corruption, respectively, among others. The study recommends the need for a gradual introduction of cost-sharing designed in collaboration with stakeholders using a locationspecific approach in order to suit the consumers of agricultural technology.
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