Satisfaction of extension field staff about the organizational environment and service conditions under the decentralized agricultural extension service Punjab, Pakistan

Agriculture is mainstay of Pakistan's economy with Punjab as its main agricultural province. However, the average yields at farmers' fields hardly exceed 30% of the potential yields. The gap is mainly attributed to the lack of quality extension services. The criticism continues even after the introduction of the Devolution Plan 2001 under which extension services have been decentralized. The present research was undertaken to design a staff development strategy for field staff serving under the Decentralized Agricultural Extension Service, Punjab. The assessment of the satisfaction of the extension staff about their organizational environment and service conditions was considered imperative for developing this strategy. The study was confined to the AOs (Ext.) who were in direct contact with the farmers. A total of 121 AOs (Ext.) and 43 DDOAs (Ext.) supervising them in 12 districts, equally distributed in three production zones of the province, were taken as respondents of the study. Two separate questionnaires, one each for two categories of respondents, were developed having overall Cronbatch's coefficient alpha of 0.9375 and 0.8436, respectively. These were pre-tested and delivered to the respondents, after needed improvement, during their scheduled staff meetings. The response %age for questionnaires pertaining to AOs (Ext.) and DDOAs (Ext.) was 89 and 98, respectively. The AOs (Ext.) claimed having clarity about the objectives and functions of the organization but considered the need for a mission statement of the extension service. They considered the climate of their organization as partially conducive and had large area and large number of farm families to serve for extension work. They were at all not satisfied with chances of their promotion and confirmed political interference in their transfer cases and partially in promotion cases. They showed partial satisfaction with their present pay and allowances, pension benefits as well as different facilities available to them at their duty stations.