Promoting Efficient Agricultural Extension Services Through Cost Sharing: Farmers Willingness To Participate And Pay For Agricultural Extension Services In Anambra State, Nigeria

Farmers’ lack of adequate knowledge to build resilience to the growing crisis in Agri-food systems has been attributed to knowledge-inadequacy gap created by poor extension programmes due to dwindling funding. This study assessed farmers’ willingness-to-Pay (WTP) for extension services in Anambra state, Nigeria, and estimated the amount farmers were willing-to-pay for extension services every month. Data from 200 farmers were analysed with descriptive statistics, Kendall’s coefficient of concordance (W) and Logistic regression. We confirm that the farmers’ level of utilization of extension services was poor, and a low (weak) level of agreement in utilizing the extension services existed amongst the respondents. The farmers were willing to pay an average of N405.38/service/month. Age, experience, association membership, income, farm size and level of utilization determined the farmers’ WTP. We conclude that the farmers are willing-to-pay for extension services to provide adequate information on building a resilient agri-food system. Hence, Government should provide effective extension programmes, and, the extension agents should apply a farmer-oriented approach to service provision.