Alternative extension approaches to technology utilization for sustainable agriculture in the Punjab, Pakistan

Technology utilization by farmers is an important factor, which can boost the agricultural production. For this purpose extension agencies need to put more efforts in creating awareness and facilitating the farmers for the utilization of agricultural technology. Presently three extension approaches are mainly working in the Punjab province i.e., Public Sector Extension Approach (PSEA), Participatory Extension Approach (PEA) and Commodity Specialized Extension Approach (CSEA). The present paper is based on a study conducted to analyze these extension approaches in the context of technology utilization by farmers. District Faisalabad was selected as study. Out of the five tehsils of district Faisalabad Chak Jhumra was randomly selected. Ten villages from this tehsil were taken at random, where all the three approaches were in operation and 12 farmers under each approach were randomly selected from each selected village thereby making a sample of 360 respondents. The data were collected with the help of a pre-tested, interview schedule. The analysis of the data show that PSEA was at the top followed by PEA and CSEA with regard to the utilization of agricultural technologies as perceived by the respondents. PSEA was significantly different from rest of the two approaches, whereas PEA and CSEA were non-significantly different from each other when compared in respect of technology utilization by the farmers. As indicated by the weighted scores, PEA was more effective than the other two approaches in helping the farmers and providing them technical assistance regarding technology utilization for crop production. PSEA and PEA were non-significantly different from each other when compared for providing facilitation in the utilization technologies to their registered growers, whereas CSEA was significantly different from rest of the two approaches.