Agricultural Extension Graduates, Career Opportunities and Prospects In Nigeria

Benedict Emmanuel Mitchel

Agricultural Extension Graduates, Career Opportunities and Prospects

Agriculture is the cultivation and breeding of animals, plants and fungi for food, fiber, biofuel, medicinal plants and other products used to sustain and enhance human life.

Agricultural extension is the application of scientific research and new knowledge to agricultural practices through farmer education. The field of 'extension' now encompasses a wider range of communication and learning activities organized for rural people by educators from different disciplines, including agriculture, agricultural marketing, health, and business studies.

Scope of Agricultural Extension

Agricultural extension work has a venerable, albeit largely unrecorded, history. It is a significant social innovation, an important force in agricultural change, which has been created and recreated, adapted and developed over the centuries. Its evolution extends over nearly four thousand years, although its modem forms are largely a product of the past two centuries. Today, the organizations and personnel engaged in agricultural extension encompass a diverse range of socially sanctioned and legitimate activities which seek to enlarge and improve the abilities of farm people to adopt more appropriate and often new practices and to adjust to changing conditions and societal needs.

Purpose of Agricultural extension:

• Increasing the efficiency in agricultural production 

• Increasing the efficiency in marketing, distribution and utilization of agricultural inputs and outputs. 

• Conservation, development and use of natural resources. 

• Proper management on the farm and at home. 

• Better family living. 

• Youth development 

• Leadership development 

• Community development. 

• Improving Public affairs for all round development.
 

Skills and Competencies needed in Agricultural Extension:

• Technical skills - to operate unfamiliar equipment.

• Organizational skills - to manage a group project.

• The skill to assess the economic aspects of technical advice given.

• Agricultural knowledge

• Farm management skills for keeping records and allocating the use of farm resources and equipment.

• Communication - An extension agent must above all be a communicator, both verbally and non-verbally.

• Leadership - The extension agent should inspire confidence and trust in the farmers he serves.

• IT knowledge

• Scientific knowledge

• Analytical skills

• Research skills

Career Opportunities and Job Prospects in Agricultural Extension:

Job opportunities for graduates of agricultural extension exist in both the public and private sector such as State and Federal Ministries of Agriculture, agricultural and commercial banks, private agricultural companies, research institutes such as NIFOR, CRIN, NIIR, IITA, ARMTI etc, faculties of agriculture, schools of agriculture, river basin development authority and agricultural development projects. In addition, graduates of Agricultural Extension may become self-employed as farmers, consultants, agro-input dealers, etc. or work with non-governmental organizations.

Some jobs available for an agricultural extension graduate:

• Extension Agent

• Extension Officer

• Researcher

• Development Officer

• Livestock Agent

• Crops Agent

• Extension Specialist

• Secondary School Teacher

• Lecturer

 
Admission Requirements for the study of Agricultural Extension in Nigeria:

The O'level subject combination and requirements needed to study Agricultural Extension;

You require; Five SSCE credit passes in English Language, Chemistry, Mathematics, Biology/Agric Science plus one of Physics Geography and Economics.

In UTME, please note that English Language is Compulsory for this course. Therefore, the three (3) other JAMB UTME subject combination needed to study Agricultural Extension under the Faculty of Agriculture in the above Universities include;

Chemistry, Biology/Agriculture and Physics or Mathematics.

SOME INSTITUTIONS WHERE YOU CAN STUDY AGRICULTURAL EXTENSION

• Federal University of Technology Akure

• Federal University of Technology, Owerri

• University of Nigeria