1.1 Introduction
Agricultural extension is the application of scientific research and knowledge to agricultural practices through farmer education. Generally, an agricultural extension can be defined as the delivery of information inputs to farmers. The role and performance of extension services can be measured by its function of improving agricultural productivity (Hounkonnou et al., 2018). Agricultural extension information management system is a software packaged that contains a lot of files and records the file that was designed in details. These files include sales, files which each of this record consist of files like varieties of pigs, quantity, price, weight, sub-total, total amount, grand total, etc. The performance of agricultural extensions is relevant to their improvement of the performance of the whole agriculture system. Agriculture extensions should impact the performance, production and employment condition of the agriculture sector of the country.
As a prelude to other parts of this study, this chapter will discuss the background upon which this study was initiated, the statement of problems that led to this study, the Aim and Objectives of the study. Others are Significance of the study, Scope of work, Limitations of the Study and Definition of technical terms.
1.2 Background of Study
Agriculture sector in Nigeria is considered a major contributor to economic growth and development. This sector not only meets food demands of population but also provides raw material for industry besides providing surplus for exports. Despite the face this sector has witnessed many high points and low points in recent years, overall growth has remained satisfactory. This sector has a proven great potential to support the nation’s economy both now and in the future if due consideration is given to solve rising issues. Reasonable agriculture growth and improvement rely on how concerns various partners particularly farmers who are facing several risks in farm production and marketing of their farm produce, are adequately addressed.
Regularly, farmers need to bear value reduction in their produce due to poor infrastructure and post-harvest practices. Moreover, frequent food surpluses and deficiencies have featured the need to modernize marketing system framework so that goal situations can be handled. Marketing can be defined and comprehended in various ways but commonly it is recognized as a place or areas where buyers and sellers gather and interact for buying and selling goods and services.
Poor a quality-oriented agricultural sector loses performance of agriculture extensions that are provided to the farmers for improvement. Further, the high quality-oriented agricultural sector has achieved high performance of agriculture extensions that are provided to the farmers for improvement (Lameck, 2017). Additionally, system quality has a positive influence on the performance of agriculture extensions of the country. The performance of agriculture extensions can be increased through the quality system of the agriculture sector of the country (Sewell et al., 2017) as quality oriented performance of agriculture extensions also increases. Thus, to investigate the perceived positive association between system quality and performance of agriculture extensions, the following hypothesis has been developed:
Many other scholars has described marketing as an exchange process of goods and services accompanied by price making mechanism. Agricultural markets play a central role of assembling rural agricultural produce from scattered and vast production areas and distribute these commodities further to consumers and other stakeholders in urban and peri-urban areas. Agricultural marketing most times encompasses activities which may be picking/harvesting, drying, cleaning, sorting, grading, processing, packaging, labeling, transporting, storage, promotion and sale of agricultural products. All these major activities contribute in adding value to agricultural products as these products flow from farm producers to consumers. While some of these major activities are performed on farmers’ farm, the others are carried out off-farm by other market intermediaries such as traders and agro-processors.
1.3 Statement of Problem
Investigation revealed that agricultural extension farm products differ from industrial products due to their perishable nature and special requirements during various harvesting process and transportation operations. There is a need to design a agricultural extension management information system to aid in displaying farm produce from farmers across the country to meet major stakeholders in need of these farm products. This will assist in growing the economy of the country when international investors invest in the farm produce seen on the marketing system. Furthermore, agricultural marketing includes all business activities designed to plan, price, promote and distribute want satisfying goods and services to household consumers and industrial users.
1.4 Aim and Objectives of the Study
The aim of the study is to design and implement a Agricultural Extension Information Management System. In achieving this aim, the following specific objectives were laid out as follows to develop an application software that will:
- Aid agricultural extension workers in different areas have a proper platform to promote their farm product;
- Provide agricultural extension information for ease distribution of farm products across the country through technology;
- Enhance the link between agricultural extension workers and end product users in rural and urban areas; and
- Provide information about the role of management information systems (MIS) such as system quality, information quality and organizational impact on the performance of agriculture extension.
1.5 Significance of Study
The relevance of the study computerized system of Agricultural Extension MIS will change the whole thing positively. It will totally eliminate the inherent problem which will in turn bring about immense cash value to all agricultural extension workers in Nigeria.
In addition, it will bring about more noticeable contribution and improvements to both the headquarters and other branches nationwide to be able to defined their problems and find out large on the favourable side.
This study will be of immense benefit to other researchers who intend to know more on this study and can also be used by non-researchers to build more on their research work. This study contributes to knowledge and could serve as a guide for other study.
1.6 Scope of Study
The scope of the research is focused on the Design and Implementation of Agricultural Extension Information Management System.
1.7 Limitations of the Study
During the course of this study, many things militated against its completion, some of which are:
- Time Constraint: The time frame given to accomplish this project was very short due to school academic calendar and it was carried out under pressure which made the researcher not to implement some necessary features.
- Research material: availability of research material is a major setback to the scope of the study.
- Frequent power failure: This made the researcher append more money on fuel to ensure sustainable power.
- Financial Constraint: Insufficient fund tends to impede the efficiency of the researcher in sourcing for the relevant materials, literature or information and in the process of data collection (internet).
1.8 Definition of Terms
Computer: A machine used in modern times in organization and homes do manipulate data.
Data: Is a row fact that has no meaning.
Database: A collection of interrelated data stared with controlled redundancy to serve one or more application.
