Digital technologies competencies and training needs of agricultural extension agents

Abstract

Application of digital technologies are imperative to enhance agricultural productivity and food systems sustainability. At the heart of improved agricultural production is agricultural extension. Agricultural extension support farmers with accurate and timely information about technologies such as digital technologies that have the potential to increase production and the livelihoods of farmers. There is inadequate empirical data on digital technologies competencies and training of needs of extension agents who expected lead the digital transformation in the agricultural sector. A questionnaire was used to survey of 125 agricultural extension agents from four regions in Ghana. Data were processed with International Business Machine Statistical Package for Social Sciences (IBM SPSS) version 27 and Microsoft Excel version 16. Frequencies, percentages, means, standard deviation and Borich’s Needs Assessment Model were utilised for data analysis. The results largely show that, extension agents possessed moderate competencies (overall mean = 2.59±1.00) in digital technologies for agricultural extension delivery. While extension agents exhibited moderate knowledge (overall mean =2.57±0.93) and attitudes (overall mean 2.81±1.09) towards digital technologies, their skills were low (overall mean = 2.39±0.98). The study further revealed that application of drone technology (0.0146), robotics (0.0142), big data analytics (0.0133), and machine learning (0.0119) are key training needs of extension agents. The results points to the fact that there must be a consented effort by the Ministry of Food and Agriculture to initiate training and development programmes aimed at building the capacity of agricultural extension agents to adopt digital technologies for extension delivery in the study area.