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The purpose of this paper is to determine the materials used in Masters' theses of the Agricultural Economics and Extension Department (AEE), FUTA during the period of 2005‐2009 with the aim of improving the existing collection development available for the students.

The study employed descriptive research design. Theses submitted for the award of M.Tech degree between 2005 and 2009 at the department of AEE, FUTA were examined. This was checked against the record of AEE (M.Tech) graduands obtained from the School of Postgraduate Studies. The population of the study was all the theses submitted during the periods under study. Data were extracted from title pages and reference lists. Extracted data were analysed using descriptive statistics.

It was found that journals were more consulted compared to other sources of information materials. AEE M.Tech students do not take much advantage of resources available on the web and internet. It was also revealed that highest citation was recorded in 2006, while 30.52 per cent of materials cited were 20 years old and above. In addition, more than half of the cited materials were contributed by single authors and foreign journals were more cited with 72 per cent than local journals with 28 per cent. Moreover, Journal of Agriculture Economics was found to be the most cited journal followed by Journal of Econometrics.

The paper highlights the information materials available and used by Master students of the Agricultural Economics and Extension Department for their research work and those which need to be added for a healthy collection.

This study aims to explore possible ways to promote uptake and integration of climate-smart agriculture (CSA)-Technologies, Innovations and Management Practices (TIMPS) into policy and practice in Nigeria through the development of actionable roadmaps to facilitate the process.

Two hundred and fifty-two stakeholders for the policy discourse and survey were purposively drawn from both government and private agencies, NGOs and community-based associations from the six geo-political zones of the country. Data collection was done using a mixed method comprising questionnaire administration, in-depth interviews and panel discussion. Data collected was summarised using descriptive statistics.

The major findings were lack of existing policies on CSA, lack of farmers’ awareness of CSA-TIMPs, neglect of extension programmes that can help to enlighten farmers on the importance of CSA and insufficient extension personnel to cater for farmers’ needs. Challenges to CSA-TIMPs uptake in Nigeria were: insufficient funding and support by government in programme planning and implementation, policy inconsistencies and poor farmers’ attitude and resistance to change.

This research will facilitate CSA uptake and integration through the provision of data for informed decision and action by the responsible agencies.

Suggested actionable roadmaps across the zones were robust awareness campaign and advocacy on uptake of CSA-TIMPs through e-extension, community TV/radio in local dialects; revitalisation of policy programmes such as monthly meetings should be reintroduced and creation of CSA Departments/Stations in each state; increased budget allocation to a minimum of 10% for agriculture, revitalisation of Researchers-Extension Agents-Farmers Linkage, employment of qualified extension agents and retraining of extension agents.

In the developing countries, formal credit has dominant role for the development of agriculture sector. It increases the farmer's purchasing power for better farm inputs and agricultural technology for high crop productivity. The main purpose of this study is to examine the influence of socioeconomic characteristics of smallholder farmers for credit demand in Sindh, Pakistan.

A cross-sectional data set randomly collected from 90 smallholder farmers in Thatta district, Sindh, Pakistan, is examined. Descriptive statistics, correlation and the OLS regression method were used to demonstrate the important factors affecting the demand for formal credit.

The results revealed that formal education, experience of farming, landholding size, road access and extension contacts positively and significantly influenced the demand for formal credit.

This study is the first, to the best of authors' knowledge, to demonstrate the influence of various socioeconomic characteristics of smallholder farmers on demand for formal credit in Sindh, Pakistan. It also illustrates the imperative contribution to the literature regarding credit access and demand to improve the agricultural productivity.

The objectives of this paper are to analyze the drivers of smoked marine fish prices and examine the challenges along the value chain to inform policy.

The study relies on cross-sectional data from 158 fish smokers, 100 wholesalers, and 120 retailers in Ghana. The challenges faced by the actors along the chain are identified and ranked using Kendall's coefficient of concordance. The three-stage least square estimation approach is employed to control for endogeneity resulting from the simultaneous equations for prices of different fish types and their substitutes.

The results reveal that marketing experience, the extent of competition, price of substitutes, payment terms, and variable cost items, such as transportation cost and storage charges, are key determinants of smoked fish prices along the value chain. Lack of access to credit is the main constraint to the marketing of smoked marine fish, irrespective of the actor or the fish type.

Many studies have established the linkages between fish consumption, prices, and food security in the literature. However, there is a dearth of information on the responsiveness of fish prices to changes in the market and seller-specific factors to drive policy to stabilize prices along the value chain.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/IJSE-09-2021-0566

It is globally accepted that climate change is presently the greatest threat to the sustainability of human livelihood and biodiversity. Most farmers in the study area are highly aware of climate change and its consequences on the farming system; however, mitigation strategies are clearly lacking. Among the mitigation, mechanism to reduce the threat is achieved by increasing the amount of carbon sinks and reducing greenhouse gas emission through the adoption of agroforestry practices. The purpose of this study is to determine if awareness on climate change leads to the adoption of agroforestry practices, and to examine the determinants.

A total number of 117 questionnaires were administered to the farmers in the district using stratified random sampling technique. Data were captured and analysed using STATA and XLSTAT software. Descriptive statistics and Heckprobit sample selection model were used to determine the objectives of the study.

The result established that climate change awareness does not lead to the adoption of agroforestry in the study area in which information source and member’s association were statistically significant at (p < 0.1) and (p < 0.05), respectively, and determine the adoption of agroforestry practices, while farming experience (p < 0.1), age (p < 0.05), extension visit (p < 0.05) and education (p < 0.1), were the determining factors that influence the awareness of climate change in the study area.

Regular number of extensions visit, information and training on agroforestry should be provided to the farmers in the study area.

Farmers’ association should be strengthened among the rural farmers.

The causal effect or relationship of climate change awareness on mitigation through the practice of agroforestry in South Africa, especially in the study area, has not been measured. This research set a pace in the area of climate change awareness leading to mitigation strategies through the use of agroforestry practices as an option to be used in the rural farming area of South Africa.

The emerging technologies of the Fourth Industrial Revolution are transforming various industries, including agriculture. Unaware, young male and female farmers leave the agriculture profession as they perform unsustainable practices. Precision agriculture using the Internet of Things (IoT) is a solution to sustainable agriculture. Extension professionals are at the heart of disseminating agricultural advisory agricultural services in India. The discourse on the IoT is entering the space of extension advisory services (EASs) and social sciences. Thus, the present paper seeks to review the application of IoT in Indian agriculture, its challenges and its effect on EASs. The conceptual framework is drawn from disruptive and surveillance capitalist theories.

Online literature review was conducted on electronic e-book Ebsco, Google scholar, PubMed, Jane, j gate, research4life, springer journal and Mendeley databases for full-text repositories, textbook, thesis, web articles, newspaper articles, reports, blogs for the year 1990 to May 2021 using keywords “IoT application in agriculture,” “emerging technologies in agriculture,” “challenges in IoT application,” “extension advisory services sources of information,” “big data and extension advisory, “IoT and extension advisory in India.” Only publications in the English language were included.

IoT aids progressive farmers and small farmers alike. Drones, robotics, precision irrigation, livestock tracking and crop disease surveillance are examples of IoT applications in agriculture. Only large corporations and governments access IoT, and for them, big data storage is an issue. Privacy and security concerns demand upgrades in IoT systems. Solutions to the convergence of IoT with the cloud will leverage agricultural EASs, resulting in fast computing, precise and proactive up-to-date problem solving. Hence, the need for communication between firms and clients has ceased. Thus, the jobs of extension agents are replaced.

The competence of future human extension agents lies in reskilling as a “knowledge broker” of relationships and expertise, as s/he cannot have all multidisciplinary knowledge.

Although IoT applications in agriculture are available from a technological standpoint, there remains an awareness gap regarding the impact of IoT applications in agricultural EASs. This study will aid in a better comprehension of IoT applications from current and prospective EASs.

It is well-known that traditional methods of technology dissemination are not cost-effective; and that extension agencies are limited very much by personnel resources in approaching the clientele they need to contact. Therefore, at present, many sectors of the world economies are attracted to the use of ICT for technology dissemination. However, such interventions are not common in the agricultural sector, especially in developing countries. Realizing this, the Department of Agricultural Economics and Extension at the University of Ruhuna, Sri Lanka, implemented a programme ‘Lifelong Learning for Farmers’ (L3F), employing ICT as one of its components. For this programme, the University of Ruhuna collaborated with the mobile phone company Mobitel(PLC) Ltd and developed an IVR (interactive voice response) system to approach clients.

Mushroom production is essentially small-scale and remains a cottage industry. In order to raise the living standards, it is necessary to provide scientific information to scattered production units. Such efforts will turn them into commercial producers and provide an opportunity to compete in the local and foreign markets. This investigation focuses on the use ofmobile phones for technology dissemination to small-scale mushroom producers. The IVR system embedded different two-minute messages employing ODL techniques over six months. The entire series of lessons included the establishment of a mushroom shed; the preparation of the growing medium; filling bags and sterilization; inoculation and incubation of mushroom spawns; harvesting; pests and disease control; processing and preservation; seed production; and business planningand financial management. The results showed that 5,583 clients listen to the lessons; and, according to the spatial distribution, the majority of them were from wet zone districts as the climatic conditions are favourable for the enterprise. However, feedback is still limited.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the career trajectories of 66 distinguished African agricultural professionals in order to explore how agricultural education and training (AET) institutions can better motivate and prepare youth for productive careers in Africa’s rapidly changing agrifood system.

Based on in-depth qualitative interviews with these role models, the paper explores the answers to two critical questions: How can Africa motivate its youth to consider careers in agriculture and agribusiness? How can AET institutions better prepare youth for productive careers in agribusiness?

Rural youth enter agribusiness careers in response to clearly perceived rural needs coupled with demonstrable profitability of modern agricultural and agribusiness opportunities. In contrast, urban youth embark on agricultural career paths in response to inspiring science education, particularly practical applications in biology, coupled with emerging awareness of the range of professional opportunities afforded by modern agribusiness and commercial agriculture.

The study relies on the basic premise that seasoned, successful professionals – from the private and public sector – can offer useful insights into ways of improving job preparation training for the youth of today seeking careers in the food system of tomorrow. The approach assumes that the role models have both the practical experience and forward-looking vision necessary to identify key elements of preparation likely to benefit future job market entrants.

This paper relies on primary interviews with distinguished agricultural professionals from 14 different African countries.

The agricultural extension system in Indonesia has experienced its ups and downs in line with the sociopolitical dynamics of the country. This study examines the impact of access to agricultural extension on the adoption of technology and farm income of smallholder farmers in Banten, Indonesia.

This study uses a quasi-experimental research design to estimate the impact outcomes at the farm level, with methods that form part of the counterfactual framework.

Estimation results show that farming experience, off-farm income, irrigation, group membership, mobile phones and livestock ownership significantly affect extension access. The results of this main study show the important role of extension access to technology adoption and agricultural income. These studies found consistently positive and statistically significant effects of access to extension services on technology adoption and farm income.

The consistent positive and significant effect of extension access implies that public investment by the government in agricultural extension can optimize the potential impact on technology adoption and agricultural income, which also affects the distribution of the welfare of rural smallholder farmers.

Agricultural extension as a key to increasing technology adoption. However, the impact of access to agricultural extension in Indonesia has received less attention in terms of adoption and farm income.

This paper examines the performance of smallholder rice farms established using improved planting technologies – broadcasting, dibbling and transplanting – under different production systems – rain-fed and irrigation – in Ghana.

Using recent cross-sectional data of 200 smallholder rice farmers from the upper east region of Ghana, this study employed multinomial logit model and descriptive and inferential statistics for the analysis.

The results revealed that rice production under irrigation system contributes significantly to increasing farm productivity and profitability. Rice farmers who adopted dibbling and transplanting technologies under both irrigation and rain-fed production system obtained higher productivity and profitability than those who used broadcasting technology. Adoption of improved rice planting technologies by smallholder farmers is significantly influenced by education, farm size, improved rice varieties, sales outlets, hired labour and percentage of paddy sold.

The sample size is relatively small, even though findings are still very important in terms of policy formulation for improved smallholder farm performance in a developing country like Ghana.

This study calls for collaborative efforts by government, donor agencies and NGOs to establish irrigation facilities and/or expand existing ones, increase sensitization and dissemination of improved planting technologies, as well as intensify the input subsidy programme in Ghana.

To the best of the authors knowledge, this is the first study that focuses on farmers' choice of rice planting technologies under irrigation and rain-fed production systems, and how these technologies impact on smallholder farm performance in Ghana.