Evaluation of the Extension Program of Njala University College Sierra Leone

The purpose of the study was to evaluate the effectiveness of the extension programme of Njala University College. Operationally, the study assessed the farmers' adoption level of the agricultural innovations introduced to them, determined their socio-economic characteristics and how these were related to the adoption behavior of the programme participants. Two hundred farmers drawn randomly from six chiefdoms were involved in the study. Data analysis revealed that there was a positively significant rela­tionship between innovation adoption by the participants and farm size, years of schooling, decision making type, cosmopoliteness, land tenure, aspiration to change farm size and number of farm enterprises, number of information sources used and awareness of agricultural innovations. The programme strategy, that is, the trickle down adoption through the non-participants had not been appreciably noticeable in terms of technology transfer from the former to the latter. The participants' farm size, income, social participation, extension contact, number of information sources used, awareness of agricultural innovations, and posititve attitudes toward the extension programme were significantly higher than those of the non­participants. The non-participants within the programme area, however, experienced the programme's spill-over effect more than those non­participants outside the programme area. Lack of credit, shortage of extension agents, and limited number of tractors were discovered as some of the problems confronting the farmers. The study concluded with the following recommendations; a) a review of the extension strategy to extend activities to those farmers who have not benefitted from the programme, b) encouraging group action among farmers,c) re-emphasizing extension contact by increasing the strength of the present field staff and d) assisting farmers in getting credit and the timely supply of inputs such ·as fertilizers and improved seeds.