Extension and the Adoption of Commercial Rabbit Production in Hai District

Abstract

Extension is the term, which is open to many interpretations. Every extension personnel have a unique interpretation of extension, based on experience and agent’s field. Generally, there is no single definition of extension, which is accepted worldwide. Briefly, extension is informal educational process directed toward rural community. The process offers information and advice that help rural population to make their decisions and solve their challenges. The main aim is to improve productivity and hence better living standard of farming families. This paper aims to show the relationship between extension and the adoption of commercial rabbit in Hai District as a means of improving livelihood and productivity of rabbit products and by-products. Rabbits are kept for both food and commercial purposes. Commercial rabbit production refers to raising rabbits for income-generation or for business. Commercial rabbit production has numerous advantages that all the products and by-products are of commercial value. For example, rabbit skins are used to make blankets and many items of useful clothing for children and adults, such as shirts, leggings, socks, hoods, purse, and handbags. Rabbit urine and manure are used in manufacturing organic booster and pesticide. Commercial rabbit production has been in Hai District since 2018 as initiated by the Saore Company Limited. Despite its numerous benefits and efforts made by Saore Company Limited to promote commercial rabbit production in the district, only about 0.001 per cent of the population is engaged in commercial rabbit production. Several studies have associated the adoption of innovations with extension. Taking commercialization of rabbit production as an innovation, this study determined the relationship between extension and the adoption of commercial rabbit production in Hai District. The study adopted a survey research design to collect data from 170 respondents (85 commercial and 85 non-commercial rabbit producers) using a questionnaire. Data triangulation was done through key informant interviews. Both descriptive and inferential statistics were used to analyse the data whereby cross tabulation chi-square test of significance was fitted. The study found a significant relationship between extension and the adoption of commercial rabbit production in the study area. It is therefore, concluded that extension was significantly related to the adoption of commercial rabbit in the study area.