Farmers' Perception about the Extension Services and Extension Workers: The Case of Organic Agriculture Extension Program by PROSHIKA

Problem statement: Need of agricultural information is the basic necessity for the farmers as it plays a pivotal role in enlightening them, raising their level of knowledge and eventually help in their decision making process regarding farming activities. Extension workers with their extension services are doing this noble work. PROSHIKA a renowned NGO in Bangladesh is promoting organic agriculture among the smallholders since 1978. However, its expansion in Bangladesh has remained far behind the expected level that raised the issue about the effectiveness of the organic agriculture extension (from hereafter, OAE) program of PROSHIKA. Thus, the study was undertaken to identify the determinants influencing the effectiveness of PROSHIKA’s OAE program in improving the livelihood of the smallholder organic farmers in Bangladesh. Additionally the study was attempted to learn the farmers’ perception about this OAE program as well as the Extension Workers (EW). Approach: Data for the analysis were sourced from 90 small holder organic farmers of Madhupur subdistrict those are group members of PROSHIKA. Results: The results of the study showed that the majority (62%) of the respondent farmers had a good perception about the effectiveness of PROSHIKA’s OAE services in their livelihood improvement. While, 50% of respondent farmers felt that the extension workers of PROSHIKA are credible and about 52% of the respondent farmers had a better perception about the quality of the extension workers. The result of the logit regression identified that credibility of the extension workers, frequency of contact with extension workers, varieties of extension services received by the farmers and farmers’ education had significant relationship with effectiveness of the extension services. Conclusion/Recommendations: Thus it can be concluded that if PROSHIKA give emphasis on credibility improvement of their extension workers and ensure more frequent visits of the extension workers with farmers then the effectiveness of their extension services will be improved and eventually help in rapid expansion of organic farming in Bangladesh.