A Development of the Strategies for the Agricultural Extension Service through the Farmers' Educational Needs Assessment

The Extension Program accountability will continue to be an influential force to develop agriculture and rural area. As we incorporate new approaches into our service program and respond to new domains of knowledge, we must also consider how our assessment strategies may need to change in order to meet local and other external standards. The main purpose of the study was to be what the best way of Extension Service is set farmers' educational needs met and to be what kind of methodologies and role of Extension system should provide for their faced problem solving effectively. The major results of the study on Farmers' needs toward Korean Extension Services are summarized as follows. First, it is observed that, when the farmers' perceptions were analyzed, the most ranked by the farmers' needs was "having nice extension workers to get advice and solve their problems on the farm in all at once." Farmers had especially more positive attitudes in the categories of interest and careers in ag-technology. To do services level up, the headquarter of Rural Development of Administration must be work with local branches to effectively deliver their missions and educational objectives to target crops and farmers group. And farmers were strongly needed "a specialized service team will be organized" to work closely with operating services for ag-products processing, packing and marketing. The recommendations were made by: farmers' needs should be identified and announced by computer networking development to solve their problems faster. Also, provincial and county level service members should have a chance to working at research institute or related work places with their incentives, which system will be easer to meet farmers' needs and deal with their problems so that the systematic approaches should be managed and recorded their educational attendings, education contents and even their farming corporations. Finally, Agricultural Extension Service should be met to general ag-technology literacy and be balanced with knowledge of other industries and be competitive service with better values in non-agricultural sectors.

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