The Role of Education on Subsistence Farmers' Crop Production

The impact of education on farmers' attitudes toward Subsistence Farmers’ Crop Production (measured using an attitude survey instrument), that was estimated with data from India. The objectives were to determine the impacts of agricultural education on crop production; ascertain the influence of agricultural education on crop farmers’ adoption of innovation and determine the factors that hinder agricultural education from making maximum effect on subsistence farmers in India. The study adopted a descriptive survey design. A simple random sampling technique was used to select sixty-two female farmers and forty (40) male farmers in India, resulting to a total sample size of one hundred and two (102) crop farmers. Data was collected using a well-structured questionnaire designed in Likert 5-point rating scale of agreement. Data was analyzed using mean standard deviation with acceptance means value of  3.00 while z-test was used to test the hypothesis at 0.05% level of significance. Findings from the study revealed that agricultural education enhances crop farmers’ productivity, exposes farmers to agricultural technology, agricultural education increases local food availability among others. Also, creates awareness of improved crop varieties before they are adopted, provides adequate information concerning new innovation, adoption of innovation depends fully on the level of interaction between the change agents and the farmers amongst others. Lastly, the study found that, failure of first trials, lack of resources to obtain the new innovation, affixed with ancient method of farming and others are factors that hinder agricultural education from making maximum impact on crop farmers adoption in the study area. The study therefore recommends that government and NGOs should encourage agricultural education and its extension officers to carryout effective and adequate agricultural programme to develop farmers’ decision making skills, regular extension visits should be extended to rural farmers and adequate awareness should be created to improve farmers’ inputs. Available online at https://int-scientific-journals.com