A study on determining the factors effecting agricultural extension services in Erzurum

In this study, the factors effecting agricultural extension services in Erzurum were examined. A primary data were obtained through face-to-face questionnaire surveys conducted with farmers in four selected towns of Erzurum province. Proportional sampling was used to identify the farmers who receive support from the Government through agricultural extension delivery services. Based on this, the estimated sample size was 147 out of a total of 6146 farmers from Tortum, Pasinler, Çat, and Aziziye towns with a confidence interval of 5% and for 95% significance level. The study chose access to extension service as the dependent variable that is whether farmers receive extension service or not. This was regressed on independent variables such as Age (years), gender (dummy) had a positive effect while marital status and educational level (years) had a negative effect. The dependent variable measured as a dummy will take values of 1 as access to extension service and 0 otherwise. The data ware analyzed with probit models. Findings from the results show that level of education, marital status, farmer registered to the system, type of crop produced, availability of technical information, feedback of technical information received, relevance of extension service, source of extension service as well as availability of support for farmers were found to be a significant. It is substantially important to conduct agricultural extension services and support policies without any discrimination of farm size by public and private sector efficiently and sustainably. Keywords: Erzurum, probit model, agricultural extension services