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Article

Efficacy of Public Extension and Advisory Services for Sustainable Rice Production

by
Khodran Alzahrani
,
Mubashar Ali
,
Muhammad Imran Azeem
and
Bader Alhafi Alotaibi
*
Department of Agricultural Extension and Rural Society, College of Food and Agriculture Sciences, King Saud University, Riyadh 11451, Saudi Arabia
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Agriculture 2023, 13(5), 1062; https://doi.org/10.3390/agriculture13051062
Submission received: 14 April 2023 / Revised: 12 May 2023 / Accepted: 13 May 2023 / Published: 16 May 2023
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainable Agriculture: Theories, Methods, Practices and Policies)
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Abstract

:
Agriculture is an integral constituent of Pakistan’s economy and the primary source of livelihood for nearly 65% of the population living in rural areas. Rice is the second major staple food after wheat and a significant source of foreign exchange earnings through Basmati exports. Pakistan has established an extensive network of agricultural extension to educate the farming community about modern agricultural practices for enhancing the agricultural productivity of major food crops grown in the country. The present study was undertaken to evaluate rice farmers’ views about public extension services and to identify their perspective regarding various ways of enhancing rice production in Pakistan. A multi-stage simple random sampling technique was employed, and data were collected from 193 rice farmers with the help of structured interviews using a pre-tested questionnaire. The findings revealed that a vast majority of the rice farmers were poorly satisfied with the public extension services. The results of the Spearman Rank-Order Correlation showed that landholding size had a significant effect on deciding extension contact; public extension agents are more likely to visit and serve those rice farmers who possess large landholders and therefore have the tendency to intentionally neglect small-scale rice farmers. For enhancing rice production in Pakistan, farmers believed that the provision of subsidized agricultural inputs and a minimum support price for rice is indispensable. Based on our findings, we suggest that to make public extension services more effective, public extension agents should particularly focus on the capacity building of small-scale farmers rather than large-scale farmers. Moreover, there is a need to broaden the scope of public extension services from simple crop protection measures to a set of comprehensive sustainable agricultural practices for increasing agricultural productivity, resource-use efficiency, as well as resilience toward adverse impacts of climate change.

1. Introduction

Pakistan is the sixth most populous country of the world, with a population over 190 million people [1,2]. In terms of Purchasing Power Parity, it is the 24th largest economy of the world, while it ranks 44th in terms of nominal Gross Domestic Product (GDP) [3,4,5]. Agriculture has been the mainstay of Pakistan’s economy. Although the share of the agriculture sector in the national economy has consistently declined over the last few decades, it is still an integral part of the economy. It contributes about 22% to the national GDP. Moreover, it is a major source of employment for the country’s workforce; about 37% of the labor force is employed in this sector. Over 65% of the people living in rural and remote areas rely on to sustain their livelihoods. It is also the main source of foreign exchange earnings; nearly three-fourths of the exports are agro-based products. Various domestic manufacturing industries are dependent on agriculture for the provision of raw materials [6,7,8]. The total arable land in the country is around 30.9 million hectares (Mha), out of which 24.1 Mha is under different crops [9]. Important crops of the country include wheat, rice, cotton, sugarcane, and maize. Besides its importance for the economy, it is vital to the national food security and economic stability of both rural and urban populations amid rapid population growth [10].
Rice (Oryza sativa L.) is an important cash crop in Pakistan. It is the second major staple food after wheat in the country [11,12]. The total area under rice cultivation in different parts of the country is around 3.53 million hectares; much of this area is located in the Punjab province that is also the main province in terms of rice production [6]. Within Punjab, there are certain areas that are well known for Basmati rice cultivation. These areas are collectively known as the “Collar” tract (locally known as Kalar tract) of rice, and they include the following districts of Punjab: Gujranwala, Hafizabad, Sialkot, Narowal, Sheikhupura, Nankana, Gujrat, and Mandi Bahauddin. Both the soils and climatic conditions of these areas particularly suit Basmati rice cultivation compared with other areas in the country [13,14,15,16]. Pakistan’s total rice production stands at nearly 9.32 million tons [6]. Besides being a staple food in the country, rice exports are also a considerable source of foreign exchange earnings. Pakistan is among one of the world’s largest exporters of rice. According to the Trade Development Authority of Pakistan, the total worth of rice exports was estimated to be around $2.04 billion during the 2021 fiscal year [17].
Although the term “sustainable development” has multiple definitions and interpretations, the most popular and widely used definition is: “Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” [18]. Since the publication of the Brundtland Report by WECD, the concept of sustainable development has significantly evolved to add more focus toward resource-use optimizations, conservation of natural resources, environmental protection, and social equality and inclusion [19]. Some scholars [20] even argue for revisiting the prevailing notion of sustainable development as an analytical framework to guide international development endeavors in the context of recent unprecedented health and economic crises. In order to achieve sustainable development, since 2015, all UN member states have adopted a set of 17 Sustainable Development Goals (also known as the Sustainable Development Agenda 2030). Being universal in nature, these global goals aim to alleviate poverty, protect the environment, and ensure sustainable, resilient, and prosperous societies across the globe [21,22,23]. In the context of food and agriculture, the concept of sustainable development refers to all those sustainable agricultural and food practices that aim to ensure food security for all the people on planet Earth without their overexploitation and to reduce the global carbon footprint of agriculture, contributing toward climate change adaptation and mitigation [24,25]. Agriculture, forestry, and other land-use practices collectively contribute about 24–30% of the total global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions [26,27]. Therefore, the adoption of sustainable agricultural practices that aim to reduce GHG emissions can play a crucial role in climate change mitigation. Therefore, the institutional function of agricultural extension in this context is to promote the adoption of sustainable and climate-smart agricultural practices among the farming community by raising their level of awareness, knowledge, and skills using all possible means, especially in the developing and under-developed countries, where a large proportion of the farmers are relatively less educated and still use traditional agricultural practices that are not only resource-intensive but are also becoming less profitable and non-competitive.
Pakistan has established an extensive network of public agricultural extension across the country in order to disseminate agricultural information, educate and train the farming community about modern sustainable agricultural practices for enhancing agricultural productivity and economic growth, and alleviate poverty in the rural areas [28,29,30]. Public agricultural extension refers to the extension and advisory services that are provided by the government’s Agriculture Department without any service fee. Each province has its own independent public Agriculture Department with its affiliated agricultural extension wing that works under the aegis of respective provincial ministries of agriculture. The Agriculture Department has its offices in every tehsil (an administrative subdivision of a district) for the provision of extension and advisory services. Moreover, the Agriculture Department is systematically linked with a network of “Adaptive Research Stations” that are tasked with the creation and testing of innovative agricultural practices applicable under local agro-climatic conditions and which cater to farmers’ needs to enable them to be competitive in continuously evolving agricultural markets. At the Markaz level (a collection of a specific number of villages), the Agriculture Department deploys an extension officer (a university graduate) along with two subordinate agricultural field assistants who are mainly involved in the provision of extension and advisory services to the farming community. Figure 1 provides an overview of the functional organization of public agricultural extension in the province of Punjab, Pakistan. The private sector is also actively engaged in the delivery of extension services to the farmers [31,32,33,34]. Major private companies that participate in the provision of extension services to the farmers are mainly the input suppliers of seeds, herbicides, and pesticides. Unlike public extension, these profit-oriented companies and enterprises particularly focus on educating and training farmers regarding the use of their products for maximizing their product sales. However, despite such a large network of both public and private extension, agricultural productivity of the major crops grown in the country is relatively low compared with other neighboring nations and under similar farming systems [8,35,36,37,38].
Low agricultural productivity can be attributed to several distinct factors; however, a significant driver of this is farmers’ low adoption of modern production practices owing to their lack of or poor technical knowledge and farm management skills [39,40,41,42,43,44]. Amid the severe financial crisis in the country, it is difficult to justify huge public investment for maintaining a large public extension network and institutions without having any significant impact on national agricultural development and food security. One way to assess the impact is to explore the performance of the public Agriculture Department in terms of the extension and advisory services it provides to the farming community that are aimed at their education and capacity development regarding modern agricultural techniques and practices. In this context, the present study was designed to assess rice farmers’ views about public extension services and to analyze their own perspective about different ways of enhancing rice production, both for meeting domestic needs and for exporting to other countries.

2. Materials and Methods

2.1. Description of the Study Area

The present study was conducted in the Gujranwala district of Punjab, Pakistan. Gujranwala is further subdivided into different areas known as towns and tehsils for administrative purposes. These include Qila Didar Singh, Aroop, Khiali Shahpur, Nandipur, Wazirabad, Kamoke, and Nowshera Virkan. Each tehsil comprises several villages, and it is the smallest administrative unit [45]. The total area of Gujranwala is around 3622 sq.km [45]. As per the 2017 census, the total population of the district is about 5.01 million [45,46]. The district experiences a semi-arid climate with fluctuations throughout the year. Temperatures during the summer season may reach up to 42 °C. During the winter season, the temperature may drop to 7 °C. The highest amount of precipitation occurs during the monsoon season (July–Aug). During other periods of the year, the average precipitation is about 25 mm. Most of the rural people of the area are engaged in farming. The total cultivated area of the district is about 0.778 million acres [45,47]. Pakistan’s best-quality Basmati Rice, which is known for its peculiar aroma, is transplanted on vast tracts of land in this area. Overall, the main crops grown in the area include wheat, rice, maize, millet, and oilseed crops, such as sunflower and canola [48]. Rice is the major Kharif season crop, covering about 93% of the cultivated area. In the Rabi season, 80% of the cultivated area is under a wheat crop. Perennial canals as well as abstraction of groundwater through tube wells are the main major prime sources of irrigation. According to official sources, about 38% of the farmers are classified as small landholders, 54% as medium, and around 8% as large-scale commercial farmers [47]. Figure 2 shows the map of the study area.

2.2. Research Design

A cross-sectional survey was employed as a research design to implement the study. In terms of sampling, we adopted a multi-stage random sampling approach. In the first stage, two tehsils (Kamoke and Nowshera Virkan) of the Gujranwala district were randomly selected. In the second stage, 20 villages from both the tehsils (10 from each one) were randomly selected. In the third stage, 200 farmers (10 farmers from each of the 20 randomly selected villages) were selected for final data collection. The research questionnaire was developed by a group of researchers in the Department of Agricultural Extension and Rural Society at the King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The approval of the Research Ethics Committee of Deanship of Scientific Research at King Saud University was also obtained before initiating the process of data collection. Moreover, the informed consent of the farmers was taken verbally before collecting the data. We clearly explained to them that their participation was not mandatory, and the collected data would only be used for academic purposes. Data were collected using structured interviews; questions using the same wording and order were asked of all the farmers to ensure a standardized pattern. Out of the 200 selected farmers, 7 were not available for the interview. Each interview lasted for around 35–40 min. Before final data collection, a pilot study involving 30 farmers was conducted to test the questionnaire and to measure the internal consistency of the Likert Scale designed for determining farmers’ views about public extension services. The Cronbach alpha run for reliability analysis yielded a score of 0.83. Several studies report that an alpha coefficient value above 0.70 indicates a high level of internal consistency on the Likert Scale [49,50,51,52,53].

2.3. Research Instrument

The research questionnaire was divided into three different sections. In the first section, questions related to demographic and socio-economic characteristics were included. It contained the following questions: age, level of formal education, farming experience, landholding size, type of land ownership, and sources of income of the rice farmers. The second section included questions related to rice farmers’ views about the extension and advisory services delivered by the public Agriculture Department (AD). The rice farmers were asked about different extension services provided by the AD that are aimed at educating them and improving their knowledge and skills regarding rice cultivation. A five-point Likert scale (1 = Strongly Disagree; 2 = Disagree; 3 = Undecided; 4 = Agree; 5 = Strongly Agree) was used to determine their views about public extension services. In the last section, questions related to public extension officers’ visit to the farmers, farmers’ various sources of agricultural information, and their perspective about ways of enhancing rice production in Punjab were included.

2.4. Data Analysis

Both descriptive and inferential statistics were used to analyze the data. Demographic and socio-economic characteristics of the farmers were summarized using frequencies and percentages. Farmers’ views about public extension services were also tabulated using percentages. “Strongly disagree” and “disagree” categories were merged into one category of “disagree”, while “strongly agree” and “agree” categories on the Likert scale were merged into one category of “agree”. Based on their scores on the Likert scale, a new ordinal variable was computed to classify farmers into three different groups (1 = Poorly satisfied; 2 = Moderately satisfied; 3 = Highly satisfied). In order to find a correlation between ordinal demographic and socio-economic variables (age, education level, farming experience, landholding size, extension agents’ visit to farmers) and farmers’ views about public extension services, the Spearman Rank-Order correlation was employed. For nominal variables (land ownership and income sources), Mann–Whitney and Kruskal–Wallis tests were used. All the analyses were run using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (IBM SPSS v27.0). Figure 3 presents an overview of the methodological framework.

3. Results

3.1. Socio-Economic Characteristics of the Rice Farmers

Table 1 shows the demographic and socio-economic characteristics of the rice farmers in the study area. About 24% of the farmers were below 40 years of age. Nearly two-fifths of them (39%) were between 41–50 years of age. Around 37% of the farmers were above 50 years of age. About 18% of the farmers had no formal education. Around 26% of them said that they had attended formal schooling, but only up to primary level. Nearly 24% of the sampled farmers had educational qualifications up to middle standard. A low percentage of the farmers reported an education level of Matric or beyond; only 15% of the rice farmers attained an education level of at least Matric, whereas about 17% of them reported that they had obtained higher educational qualifications. About 43% of the respondents had farming experience between 11–20 years; around one-fourth of them had farming experience of more than 20 years. Collectively, about three-fourths of the farmers had less than 20 years of farming experience. The majority of the farmers (60%) in the study area possessed agricultural lands below 20 acres (8.09 ha); out of these, about 31% reported landholding sizes below 10 acres (4.04 ha). About 22% of the farmers had land of more than 30 acres (12.14 ha). A vast majority of the rice farmers (89%) were owners of their lands; only around 11% of them reported that they had rented agricultural lands for farming. The sources of income of around 43% of the rice farmers were both agriculture and other small side businesses. Around 38% of the farmers indicated that agriculture was their sole source of income. Apart from this, about one-fifth of them reported that they had other businesses as a main source of income, not agriculture.

3.2. Rice Farmer’s Views about Public Extension Services

Table 2 depicts the results of rice farmers’ views about public extension services. Around 61% of the rice farmers disagreed with the statement that the public Agriculture Department (AD) conducted field demonstrations about new crop varieties and modern production practices during the rice season. They (61%) also disagreed regarding the random selection of farmer’s lands for field demonstration; only one-fifth of the farmers agreed that field demonstrations were performed on randomly selected farmer fields. Over half (57%) of the farmers believed that the AD did not provide information about land preparation for nursery sowing and rice transplanting. About 64% disagreed with the statement that the AD provided information regarding irrigation and fertilizer application methods for rice crops. Over half (54%) of the farmers expressed disagreement regarding the provision of information about crop protection measures; around 42% believed that the AD provided information to control insects, pests, and diseases. Around 68% disagreed with the statement that the AD provided information regarding good post-harvest practices for rice crop management. The majority of the farmers (79%) disagreed that the AD educated the rice farmers to acquire better marketing skills. They (79%) disagreed that the AD helped rice farmers to sell their rice crop after harvesting at a profitable price. A vast majority (81%) agreed that the AD did not conduct extension programs for educating rice farmers before the start of the rice season. Around 73% of the farmers were also convinced that the AD did not use both electronic and print media effectively for the dissemination of information about modern production practices related to rice crops. About 79% of the farmers indicated that the AD did not provide timely information. The majority of them (81%) also believed that information provided by the AD was not relevant to rice farmers’ needs. A vast majority (83%) was convinced that the AD did not play a role in the timely provision of subsidized agricultural inputs. About 71% believed that extension staff were not available when they visited the AD. About three-fourths of the rice farmers were convinced that the overall performance of the AD was not satisfactory. Based on the farmers’ views about public extension services, they were classified into three distinct categories. About 76% of the farmers were poorly satisfied with the extension services provided by the AD, 10% were moderately satisfied, while 14% of them were highly satisfied (Figure 4).

3.3. Extension Agents’ Visit to Farmers, Farmers’ Sources of Information, and Their Perspective about Ways of Enhancing Rice Production

Table 3 describes the results of extension agents’ visit to rice farmers, their sources of agricultural information, and their perspective about different ways of enhancing rice production. About 60% of the farmers indicated that extension agents never visited their farms. Around 17% of them revealed that they were visited by the public extension agents only once in 6 months. Only 13% of the farmers indicated that extension agents visited their farms on a monthly basis.
Regarding sources of information, nearly half (47%) of the farmers disclosed that neighboring farmers were their main source of agricultural information. About 16% of the farmers indicated extension agents as their source of agricultural information. The internet was also used as a source of information by around 15% of the rice farmers. Radio as a source of agricultural information was only used by a small percentage (3.6%) of the farmers.
Rice farmers were also asked about their perspective on enhancing rice production. About 39% of the farmers believed that the provision of subsidized agricultural inputs to the farmers can play a significant role in enhancing rice production in Pakistan. About 35% were convinced that a suitable support price set by the government for the rice crop can also enhance rice production. Farmers’ capacity building was seen as less important; only 14% of the farmers believed that building the capacity of farmers can be helpful in raising rice production. Around 12% of them believed that the provision of credit services to the farmers is important for enhancing rice production.

3.4. Relationship of Socio-Economic Characteristics with Farmers’ Satisfaction Regarding Public Extension Services

Table 4 shows the results of the Spearman Rank-Order Correlation. The non-parametric correlation was run to find relationships between ordinal socio-economic variables (age, education, farming experience, landholding size, and extension agents’ visit to farmers) and rice farmers’ views about public extension services (ordinal variable computed from 15 Likert Scale items). The analysis revealed that age and farming experience were not statistically significantly correlated with the farmers’ views about public extension services. There was a significant positive correlation between education level and farmers’ views about public extension services (rs = 0.180; p = 0.012). However, the value of correlation coefficient suggests that it is a weak correlation.
The analysis indicated that there was a significant positive correlation between landholding size and farmers’ views about public extension services (rs = 0.744; p ≤ 0.001). The value of the correlation coefficient reveals that it is a strong correlation. In other words, those rice farmers who have more land area are more likely to be highly satisfied with the public extension services. Extension agents’ visits to farmers was also significantly negatively correlated with farmers’ views about public extension services (rs = −0.638; p ≤ 0.001). The analysis of the correlation coefficient suggests that it is a moderate correlation. The more frequently extension agents visit the farmers, the more likely the farmers are to be highly satisfied with the public extension services.
A Spearman correlation test was also run in order to identify the relationship between landholding size and extension agents’ visits to the farmers. The analysis revealed that there was a significant negative correlation between landholding size and extension agents’ visits to the farmers. The value of the correlation coefficient suggests that it is a strong correlation (rs = −0.774; p ≤ 0.001). The farmers who possess a large land area are more likely to be frequently visited by the extension agents.
Table 5 describes the results of non-parametric tests. The Mann–Whitney test was run in order to determine differences in farmers’ views about public extension services as per their land ownership. The test revealed that there were no significant differences in the views of farmers who are owners of the land compared with those who are tenants (U = 1838.50; p = 0.817). To find differences in farmers’ views about public extension services between those having different sources of income, the Kruskal–Wallis test was conducted. The results indicated that the views about public extension services by farmers having different income sources are not significantly different (χ2 = 1.027; p = 0.598).

4. Discussion and Implications

In this study, we attempted to assess rice farmers’ views about public extension and advisory services as well as their perspective regarding different ways of enhancing rice production in Punjab, Pakistan. The analysis of the farmers’ demographic and socio-economic profile reveals that the majority of the farmers are below 50 years of age and possess farming experience of 20 years or less. Age might have a relation with agricultural productivity as relatively young farmers are considered more innovative based on their ability to achieve higher overall agricultural productivity and profitability [54,55]. Farming experience can also enhance the farmers’ technical capacity as well as their orientation for adopting improved agricultural practices [56,57,58]. About half of them have attained an educational level of 8th grade or below, whereas one-fifth have no formal education. In Pakistan, most of the people who are engaged in agriculture generally have low educational background [59,60]. This is also one of the major reasons for the low resource-use efficiency and overall productivity in the country. Several studies reported a significant relationship between education of the farmers and their technical efficiency [56,57].
Although a vast majority of the farmers are owners of their lands rather than being a tenant, the majority own relatively small lands (less than 8 hectares). According to the agricultural census of 2016–2017, around 90% of the farms in Punjab are less than 10 hectares and occupy about 69% of the land area in Punjab [61]. Farmers with large landholdings are generally more productive and have high economic potential [62,63,64]. Land ownership is also known to have an impact on the long-term sustainability of land; farmers who own land are not only more innovative, but they are also more concerned about the physical condition of their lands [65,66]. Nearly two-fifths of the farmers have agriculture as their sole source of income; however, a slightly greater proportion of them use both agriculture and other business activities to earn income. Fluctuations in the market and low profitability force farmers to explore other sources of livelihood generation in addition to agriculture to supplement their income.
Regarding rice farmers’ views about public extension and advisory services, the findings reveal that a vast majority of the farmers are poorly satisfied with these services. They believe that Agriculture Department is not actively involved in the provision of various extension services, such as field demonstrations, land preparation for nursery sowing and rice transplanting, fertilizer and irrigation application methods, and post-harvest practices. They also believe that the Agriculture Department does not provide timely information and that the services provided are not relevant to rice farmers’ evolving needs. The focus of the department is generally on providing information about crop protection measures, including insects, pests, and disease control and prevention. In Punjab, the Agriculture Department of the Government of Punjab is primarily responsible for the provision of agricultural information as well as educating and training farmers about modern production practices. Ideally, the department has the mandate to provide a diverse range of extension services covering all the aspects of crop production for the various crops grown in the province. However, our findings suggest that the Agriculture Department has failed in its efforts to provide advisory services to the rice farming community. One apparent reason for the rice farmers’ dissatisfaction with public extension services is the lack of extension agents’ contact with the rice farmers in the study area. Extension agents rarely conduct field visits and are not a major source of agricultural information for the farmers. Rather, rice farmers rely on neighboring farmers and other sources for agricultural information and advice. Farmers’ access to extension and advisory services is known to positively influence their adoption of modern agricultural practices and can also increase their agricultural productivity as well as economic efficiency [58,60,65,67,68].
Public agricultural extension officials attribute the small extension workforce as the main cause of extension agents’ lack of visits to the farmers. According to the Director General of Agriculture Punjab (Extension and Adaptive Research), it is not possible to frequently visit most of the farming community owing to the current small extension workforce in the province [33]. However, our findings suggest that landholding size is a significant factor in deciding access to extension. Extension agents prefer to frequently visit farmers with large landholdings, and they intentionally neglect small farmers. It also explains why the rice farmers with large landholdings expressed a high level of satisfaction regarding public extension services. Several studies identified this undesirable extension practice [60,67,69,70]; however, it seems that this biased practice still continues to prevail, negatively affecting the agricultural productivity and farm income of small-scale farmers.
An assessment of the rice farmers’ perspective about various ways of enhancing rice production in Pakistan provides insights into the problems faced by the farming community. They think that the provision of subsidized agricultural inputs at affordable prices is indispensable for enhancing rice production under the prevailing circumstances. Since the start of 2022, the Pakistani currency (Pakistani Rupee) has depreciated by almost 55% in value against the US dollar and continues to depreciate at a rapid pace, leading the country toward economic collapse [71]. The depreciation of the Rupee has substantially increased the prices of basic agricultural inputs in the domestic market. High fuel and a corresponding rise in electricity prices has increased irrigation costs for rice. Rice is a water-intensive crop as it is transplanted on puddled soils instead of direct seeding in Pakistan. The rice seed market is also monopolized by the private sector. According to official data, out of 44,148 metric tons of total paddy seed requirement, about 40,037 metric tons are provided by private seed companies, whereas 4145 metric tons is obtained through import from other countries. The public institutions have a negligible share, procuring only 965 metric tons of seed [6]. Moreover, fertilizer prices are at an all-time high, especially phosphate and potash fertilizers, due to high energy costs. As the bulk of the agrochemicals are imported, their prices are also on a continuous rise. Use of agricultural inputs in recommended doses ensures increased agricultural productivity and farm income [72]. However, higher input prices considerably increase the costs of production, and it becomes increasingly difficult for resource-poor farmers to sustain their farming business due to a decline in yields and farm income. Decease in production levels of rice and high prices in the domestic market would affect national food security as rice is the second major staple food after wheat. Additionally, it would reduce foreign exchange earnings through a reduction in rice exports.
Another important strategy for enhancing rice production in Pakistan is to ensure a respectable Minimum Support Price (MSP) for rice growers. In the context of significantly rising input costs and a poor marketing system, this seems to be a valid demand by the farmers. The marketing system in Pakistan is not conducive for small-scale farmers as the supply chain consists of multiple intermediaries that not only add additional costs and inefficiencies but tend to exploit the smallholders by offering a low price for their produce that is not profitable for them [8]. Small farmers are not in a bargaining position because they have to immediately sell their crop in order to support their families and purchase inputs for the cultivation of the next crop. The announcement of a MSP by the government acts as a protection for smallholders as retailers are forced to buy from farmers at that price. In the case of wheat, the government announces the MSP each year to ensure that this main staple food crop is sown in enough areas by the farmers to meet the domestic food requirements; however, in case of rice, this is rare. Therefore, rice growers are making serious efforts to convince the government to use all viable channels of farmer-based organizations to offer price support. Besides cost subsidies, in many developing countries, governments employ MSP as an alternative subsidy scheme for both safeguarding smallholder farmers against market exploitation and price volatility and to encourage more production [73,74,75,76]. Extension departments can play a role in the implementation of MSP, especially in rural areas, as they are part of price control and regulatory committees formulated at the tehsil level. However, several studies reported that input subsidies can be a more effective policy intervention rather than the implementation of MSP because the latter may result in the loss of competitiveness in the international market [77,78,79].
Provision of credit services and farmers’ capacity building are envisioned as relatively less important factors than subsidized agricultural inputs and minimum support price by the farmers for enhancing rice production. To understand the farmers’ perspective, we need to contextualize the prevailing economic conditions; the country is on the brink of economic collapse, with low prospects of recovery, and inflation has risen to almost 27%, inflating prices of the agricultural inputs to record-high levels. Provision of credit facilities may not be able to provide any tangible relief with the provision of cost subsidies. The analysis of credit provision services also reveals that the current agricultural credit policy is biased toward large-scale and commercial farmers who already possess abundant resources. In Pakistan, more than fifty financial institutions provide agricultural loans to the farmers across the country. During the 2022 fiscal year, about 304 billion PKR were disbursed to large farmers (farmers above 12.5 hectares). On the other hand, only 170 billion rupees were given to small-scale and subsistence farmers, who constitute around 90% of the farmers [6]. This credit policy suggests that large farmers, who represent less than 10% of the country’s farming community, have abundant agricultural credit, whereas small farmers have restricted access to credit services. Restricted access to credit may lower farmers’ adoption capacity as well as the welfare of the farming families [60,80,81,82,83,84,85]. In terms of farmers’ capacity building, the Agriculture Department should particularly focus on developing rice farmers’ knowledge and skills to employ modern agricultural practices for improving agricultural productivity and resource-use efficiency. One of the main reasons for the low per-hectare agricultural yields of the major crops in Pakistan is the farmers’ consistent use of traditional farming practices due to poor technical knowledge and management skills [42,83,86,87].
Agricultural development policymakers and sustainability practitioners can benefit from useful insights provided by the mindsponge theory for the creation, dissemination, and management of sustainable agricultural innovations and solutions. The mindsponge framework is a novel approach that elucidates how the human mind processes information received from different sources and forms eventual decisions using subjective cost-benefit judgements by applying various filtering mechanisms to align inflowing information with an existing core set of values. It also explains how the human mind influences thought processes and guides behaviors, and how it can be reinforced or modified using information as a resource. This framework helps us understand the innovation adoption process and enhances our understanding about why certain agricultural innovations, despite having potential usefulness and application, might be rejected or not adopted on a wide scale by the farming community if they are in contradiction with their existing core values [88,89]. Moreover, the mindsponge mechanism also forms the basis of the serendipity–mindsponge–3D knowledge management framework that can be effectively employed to understand and explain the processes of innovation creation, dissemination, and management in a rapidly changing era of technological advancements and information flooding. The 3D creativity management framework could be applied in different contexts on an individual, institutional, and national level for fostering innovations in an efficient and effective manner [90].
Another framework that effectively utilizes the mechanism of mindsponge theory and further extends the serendipity–mindsponge–3D knowledge management framework is mindspongeconomics or mindspongecon. Being a new framework of applied economics, it advocates the incorporation of environmental values into the planning and policy formulation processes for estimating the true worth of goods and services to affect potential decisions and corresponding behaviors of both producers and consumers of such services [91]. The agricultural development and environment policymakers of Pakistan can allocate substantial financial resources for cultivating environmental values in both the producers (farmers and growers) and consumers. Once they recognize the ongoing threat of climate change and understand that agriculture and the land-use sector are significant contributors of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions, it may affect their thinking to undertake individual actions to combat this challenge. Moreover, once environmental stewardship is assimilated into their core values, it would be easier to convince them to adopt sustainable agricultural production and consumption practices through relevant extension education and training programs. Additionally, the government and other relevant institutions that are involved in the generation of new agricultural innovations should work in close collaboration with each other to produce affordable and practical solutions for their large-scale adoption.

5. Conclusions

The current study was designed to identify rice farmers’ views about public extension services and their perspective regarding various ways of enhancing rice production in Pakistan. A vast majority of the rice farmers were found to be poorly satisfied with the extension and advisory services provided by the Agriculture Department of the provincial government. Farmers that have large landholdings are highly satisfied with the public extension services because extension agents serve such farmers on a preferential basis. The public extension agents’ biased orientation toward large-scale farmers poses serious implications for rural development and national food security. Small farmers not only constitute the bulk of the farming community, but they also generally lack advanced agricultural knowledge and skills and management skills. Extension agents’ intentional neglect to serve these farmers would affect their agricultural productivity as well as farm income and profitability. Keeping in view the small extension work force as claimed by the extension officials, it is suggested that the Agriculture Department should recruit more agricultural graduates for the dissemination of agricultural innovations in rural areas. One viable option could be building public–private partnerships with the existing input supply companies that supply seeds and pesticides in the area. The government can grant them certain concessions in terms of tax and tariff reductions in return for their services to train the resource-poor farmers. Similarly, non-government organizations (NGOs) that are working on rural development could also be involved in this process by sharing their vision and recognizing their efforts.
Moreover, farmers’ lack of ability to meet the food demands of a rapidly growing country’s population due to low agricultural production compromises national food security. A decrease in rice production may also lower Basmati rice exports, which is a considerable source of export earnings. In order to streamline and make public extension services more effective and demand-driven for rice farmers in particular, and all farmers in general, the government should particularly focus on small-scale subsistence farmers to enhance their technical skills and managerial capacity. Equitable agricultural transformation and sustainable growth in this sector is difficult to achieve without small-scale farmers’ capacity development. Besides, there is a need to broaden the scope of public extension services from simple crop protection measures to a more comprehensive set of sustainable agricultural and climate-smart practices that cover all the aspects of crop production and to ensure resilience of farming businesses in the wake of climate change. In addition to streamlining public extension services, governmental support for the provision of subsidized agricultural inputs at affordable prices and a minimum support price for rice, similar to that provided for wheat crops, is necessary to enhance rice production in Pakistan. The prevailing economic circumstances in the country suggest that if the government fails to provide any tangible relief in the form of cost subsidies, it will seriously affect the rural economy, and that would consequently have an impact on the urban consumers who rely on rural farmers for their food needs.

Author Contributions

Conceptualization, K.A. and M.A.; methodology, M.I.A., B.A.A. and M.A.; pilot testing and data collection, M.A. and M.I.A.; software and data analysis, M.I.A. and B.A.A.; resources, K.A.; writing—original draft. M.I.A. and B.A.A.; writing—review and editing, M.I.A., K.A., M.A. and B.A.A. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

Funding

This research was funded by the Researchers Supporting Project (RSP2023R443), King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

Institutional Review Board Statement

The study was approved by the Research Ethics Committee of Deanship of Scientific Research at King Saud University.

Data Availability Statement

The data is not publicly available. However, interested researchers may be given access to the data upon request to the Deanship of Scientific Research at King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

Acknowledgments

The authors extend their appreciation to The Researchers Supporting Project number (RSP2023R443) King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

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Agriculture 13 01062 g001 550
Figure 1. Organizational hierarchy of agricultural extension in Punjab, Pakistan.
Figure 1. Organizational hierarchy of agricultural extension in Punjab, Pakistan.
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Figure 2. Map of the study area.
Figure 2. Map of the study area.
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Figure 3. Methodological framework.
Figure 3. Methodological framework.
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Figure 4. Rice farmers’ classification according to their satisfaction regarding public extension services.
Figure 4. Rice farmers’ classification according to their satisfaction regarding public extension services.
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Table
Table 1. Rice farmers’ socio-economic characteristics.
Table 1. Rice farmers’ socio-economic characteristics.
VariableFrequency (n = 193)PercentVariableFrequency (n = 193)Percent
AgeEducation Level
Below 30 years126.2Illiterate3417.6
31–40 years3518.1Primary (Grade 5)5126.4
41–50 years7639.4Middle (Grade 8)4724.4
51–60 years5327.5Matric (Grade 10)2915.0
Above 60 years178.8Above Matric3216.6
Farming ExperienceIncome Sources
Below 10 years6131.6Purely agriculture7337.8
11–20 years8343.0Other businesses3719.2
Above 20 years4925.4Both8343.0
Landholding SizeLand Ownership
Below 10 acres6031.1Owner17188.6
11–20 acres5528.5Tenant2211.4
21–30 acres3518.1
Above 30 acres4322.3
Table
Table 2. Rice farmers’ views about public extension services.
Table 2. Rice farmers’ views about public extension services.
Statements Disagree (%)Undecided (%)Agree (%)Mean
(n = 193)		Standard
Deviation
Agriculture Department (AD) conducts field demonstrations about new crop varieties and modern production practices during the rice season.60.66.732.61.720.927
Field demonstrations are conducted on randomly selected farmer fields without any bias.61.118.120.71.600.812
AD provides information about land preparation for nursery sowing and rice transplanting.56.511.432.11.760.912
AD provides information about irrigation and fertilizer application methods.64.26.729.01.650.902
AD provides information about rice crop protection measures to control insects, pests, and diseases.53.94.741.51.880.971
AD provides information about post-harvest practices for rice crop management.67.95.726.41.590.880
AD educates farmers to acquire marketing skills to earn more profit.78.89.811.41.330.671
AD helps rice farmers to sell their produce at a profitable price.79.34.116.61.370.754
AD conducts extensions programs for educating rice farmers before the start of the rice season.80.82.616.61.360.751
AD effectively uses both print and electronic media to disseminate information about modern rice production practices.72.515.511.91.390.692
AD provides extension services in a timely manner.79.35.715.01.360.730
Extension services provided by AD are relevant to rice farmers’ needs.80.84.714.51.340.718
AD plays a role in the timely provision of agricultural inputs at subsidized rates.82.94.113.01.300.687
When you visit AD, extension staff is available.71.08.320.71.500.817
The overall performance of AD is satisfactory.75.19.815.01.400.737
Statements were measured using a 5-point Likert scale (1 = Strongly Disagree to 5 = Strongly Agree). However, in the final analysis, these categories were combined into three categories (1 = Disagree; 2 = Undecided; 3 = Agree).
Table
Table 3. Extension agents’ visit to farmers, farmers’ sources of information, and their perspective about enhancing rice production.
Table 3. Extension agents’ visit to farmers, farmers’ sources of information, and their perspective about enhancing rice production.
VariableFrequency
(n = 193)		Percent
Extension Agents’ Visit to Farmers
Monthly2513.0
Once in 3 months2110.9
Once in 6 months3216.6
Never11559.6
Farmers’ Sources of Agricultural Information
Extension Agents3116.1
Neighboring Farmers9147.2
Print Media199.8
TV178.8
Radio73.6
Internet2814.5
Ways of Enhancing Rice Production
Farmers’ capacity building2613.5
Provision of subsidized agricultural inputs7538.9
Provision of credit services2412.4
Ensuring a support price by government for rice crops6835.2
Table
Table 4. Spearman Rank-Order Correlation.
Table 4. Spearman Rank-Order Correlation.
Independent Variables aCorrelation Coefficient (rs)p-Value
Age0.0440.545
Education Level0.180 *0.012
Farming Experience0.0880.226
Landholding Size0.744 **<0.001
Extension Agents’ Visits to Farmers−0.638 **<0.001
Landholding size b−0.774 **<0.001
a Dependent variable is farmers’ satisfaction regarding public extension services (1 = poorly satisfied; 2 = moderately satisfied; 3 = highly satisfied). * Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed). ** Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed). b Dependent variable is extension agents’ visits to farmers (1 = monthly; 2 = once in 3 months; 3 = once in 6 months; 4 = never).
Table
Table 5. Results of Mann–Whitney and Kruskal–Wallis tests.
Table 5. Results of Mann–Whitney and Kruskal–Wallis tests.
Independent VariableFarmers’ Satisfaction Regarding Public Extension Services a
Mean RankMann–Whitney Up-Value
Land Ownership
Owner (n = 171)97.251838.500.817
Tenant (n = 22)95.07
Kruskal—Wallis Test
VariableMean RankChi Squarep-Value
Income Sources
Purely agriculture (n = 73)95.771.0270.598
Other businesses (n = 37)92.28
Both (n = 83)100.19
a Dependent variable is farmers’ satisfaction regarding public extension services (1 = poorly satisfied; 2 = moderately satisfied; 3 = highly satisfied).
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Alzahrani, K.; Ali, M.; Azeem, M.I.; Alotaibi, B.A. Efficacy of Public Extension and Advisory Services for Sustainable Rice Production. Agriculture 2023, 13, 1062. https://doi.org/10.3390/agriculture13051062

AMA Style

Alzahrani K, Ali M, Azeem MI, Alotaibi BA. Efficacy of Public Extension and Advisory Services for Sustainable Rice Production. Agriculture. 2023; 13(5):1062. https://doi.org/10.3390/agriculture13051062

Chicago/Turabian Style

Alzahrani, Khodran, Mubashar Ali, Muhammad Imran Azeem, and Bader Alhafi Alotaibi. 2023. "Efficacy of Public Extension and Advisory Services for Sustainable Rice Production" Agriculture 13, no. 5: 1062. https://doi.org/10.3390/agriculture13051062

APA Style

Alzahrani, K., Ali, M., Azeem, M. I., & Alotaibi, B. A. (2023). Efficacy of Public Extension and Advisory Services for Sustainable Rice Production. Agriculture, 13(5), 1062. https://doi.org/10.3390/agriculture13051062

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