| Summary: | 碩士 === 國立屏東科技大學 === 熱帶農業暨國際合作研究所 === 94 === This study was to evaluate sustainable intervention efforts in technology transfer and adoption by extension agents and women’s vegetable production and marketing groups in The Gambia. In the past three decades numerous projects have been implemented to increase up agricultural production, particularly vegetable and rice production, in The Gambia.
However, agricultural development in The Gambia continues to be constrained by problems such as lack of adequate funds for research and development programs, improper structuring of research and extension services, insufficient training programs, inadequate credit systems, lack of incentives, lack of mobility for research and extension programs, inadequate appropriate technologies, and poorly structured production and marketing of women’s group. A survey was conducted in Kanifing Municipality and Western Division of The Gambia to determine the level of technology transfer and the adoption rate of new technologies. In this survey a total of 75 questionnaires were distributed to extension agents and women farmers from the sustainable intervention projects and non-sustainable intervention project sites were interviewed. From the 75 questionnaires distributed to extension agents and women farmers 67 or 89% of the questionnaires were received.
The result indicates that vegetable gardens within the sustainable project intervention sites performed better than non-sustainable project intervention sites. This is because the sustainable project sites have support in terms of appropriate use of technologies, use of improved varieties, fertilizer application, pest management control and adoption of production recommendations. As a result the production, income and funds accumulated also increased. According to the results, most of the vegetable gardens particularly those from the non- sustainable project intervention sites failed to keep proper records of their revolving funds. The revolving funds accumulated in the non-sustainable project intervention sites were low compared to that of the sustainable project intervention sites. This is because the non-sustainable project intervention sites were not receiving support. As a result production, income and accumulated funds decreased in some of the gardens. It was found that women vegetable growers had diverse marketing methods by sending their produce to local markets, hotel industry, or at farm gate.
In addition to the marketing constraints, women vegetable growers had numerous other production constraints such as pests and diseases, lack of improved seeds, low price, post harvest techniques, poor road conditions, and lack of transport facilities. However, survey result further indicates that national agricultural research institute was not endowed with sufficient resources to conduct research all year round. Despite enabling research environment, majority of the respondents alluded to the lack availability of sufficient resources. The result also shows that there were no routine trainings, no cohesive research-extension linkage system, and minimal technology adoption. Besides the constraint of insufficient budgetary allocation for agricultural development survey respondents identified the factors constraining research and extension activities, which include lack of sufficient resources, lack of incentives, lack of training, and lack of mobility. Agricultural technology transfer is important in the development of agriculture in any country. The prospective of a developing country is to reduce the level of poverty and hunger confronting its people by adopting new measures to increase income and attain household food security. However, this can only be achieved through effective use of appropriate production and marketing technologies, developed and transferred through the extension system.
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