1. Department of Agricultural Extension and Rural Society, College of Food and Agriculture Sciences, King Saud University, Riyadh 11451, Saudi Arabia; mubashar66@gmail.com
2. Department of Agricultural Extension and Rural Society, College of Food and Agriculture Sciences, King Saud University, Riyadh 11451, Saudi Arabia;  imranszam@gmail.com
3. Department of Agricultural Extension and Rural Society, College of Food and Agriculture Sciences, King Saud University, Riyadh 11451, Saudi Arabia;  rabia8909moben@gmail.com

*             Correspondence: mubashar66@gmail.com

Keywords: smallholder, farmers, advisor service, public extension, sustainable rice production

1. INTRODUCTION

With a population of more than 190 million, Pakistan is the sixth most populated nation in the world [1, 2]. It is the world’s 24th largest economy in terms of purchasing power parity and 44th in terms of nominal gross domestic product (GDP) [3-5]. Pakistan’s economy has always been based primarily on agriculture. Despite a constant fall in its share of the national economy over the past few decades, the agriculture industry remains a vital component of the economy. It makes up almost 22% of the GDP of the country. Furthermore, it employs a significant portion of the labour force in the nation—roughly 37% of all workers—and is a major source of employment. More than 65 percent of those who live in isolated and rural areas depend on to make ends meet. With agro-based items accounting for over three-fourths of exports, it is also the primary source of foreign exchange earnings. Agriculture provides the raw ingredients needed by a number of domestic industrial enterprises [6,7,8]. Approximately 30.9 million hectares (Mha) of arable land are available in the nation; of this, 24.1 Mha are planted with various crops [9]. The nation’s principal crops are maize, wheat, rice, cotton, and sugarcane. In addition to its economic significance, it is essential for national food security and the financial stability of both rural and urban inhabitants in the face of fast population expansion [10]. In Pakistan, rice (Oryza sativa L.) is a significant cash crop. After wheat, it is the nation’s second most important staple food [11,12]. Approximately 3.53 million hectares are planted to rice throughout the nation; the majority of this land is found in the province of Punjab, which is also the largest producer of rice [6]. There are parts of Punjab that are well-known for growing Basmati rice. The following districts in Punjab are included in the “Collar” tract (sometimes referred to as the “Kamal tract”) of rice: Gujranwala, Hafizabad, Sialkot, Narowal, Sheikhupura, Nankana, Gujrat, and Mandi Bahauddin. When compared to other parts of the nation, these regions’ soils and climate are especially conducive to the growth of Basmati rice [13, 14, 15, 16, 17]. Pakistan produces about 9.32 million tonnes of rice total [6]. In addition to being a staple meal in the nation, rice exports generate a sizable amount of foreign exchange revenue. Pakistan is one of the biggest exporters of rice in the world. The Trade Development Authority of Pakistan anticipated that rice exports to be valued $2.04 billion in total for the fiscal year 2021 [17]. The most frequently accepted definition of “sustainable development” is “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” [18]. This definition is despite the fact that the phrase has several meanings and interpretations. The idea of sustainable development has undergone substantial change since the WECD’s Brundtland Report was released, with a greater emphasis now being placed on social inclusion and equality, resource conservation, resource optimisation, and environmental protection [19]. In light of the current, exceptional health and economic crises, some academics [20] even contend that the widely accepted concept of sustainable development should be reviewed as an analytical framework to direct international development initiatives. Since 2015, the Sustainable Development Goals (also known as the Sustainable Development Agenda 2030) have been embraced by all UN member states as a means of achieving sustainable development. These global goals, which are universal in nature, seek to create sustainable, resilient, and successful societies worldwide as well as to reduce poverty and safeguard the environment [21–23].  The term “sustainable development” in relation to food and agriculture refers to all sustainable agricultural and food practices that seek to guarantee food security for every person on Earth without over-exploitation and to lower the global carbon footprint of agriculture, thereby aiding in the adaptation and mitigation of climate change [24, 25]. About 24–30% of all greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions worldwide are caused by land-use activities such as forestry, agriculture, and other land-use activities [26, 27]. Thus, using sustainable farming methods with the goal of lowering GHG emissions can be extremely important for mitigating climate change. Since a large portion of farmers in developing and underdeveloped nations are relatively less educated and continue to practise traditional agriculture, which is not only resource-intensive but also becoming less profitable and non-competitive, agricultural extension’s institutional function in this context is to encourage the farming community to adopt sustainable and climate-smart agricultural practices by raising their level of awareness, knowledge, and skills through all available means. In order to reduce poverty in rural areas, educate and train the farming community about contemporary sustainable agricultural practices for increasing agricultural productivity and economic growth, and spread agricultural information, Pakistan has built an extensive network of public agricultural extension throughout the nation [28–30]. The term “public agricultural extension” describes the free advising and extension services offered by the government’s Agriculture Department. Every province has a separate public agriculture department that operates independently from the provincial ministries of agriculture and has an associated agricultural extension wing. The Agriculture Department provides extension and consulting services from its offices located in each tehsil, which is a district administrative subdivision. Additionally, the Agriculture Department is systematically connected to a network of “Adaptive Research Stations” that are charged with developing and testing novel agricultural techniques that work in the unique agroclimatic conditions of the area and meet the needs of farmers to help them remain competitive in ever-changing agricultural markets. The Agriculture Department assigns two subordinate agricultural field assistants and an extension officer (a university graduate) to each Markaz level, which is a group of a certain number of villages. The extension officer’s primary responsibility is to provide the farming community with advisory and extension services. In addition, the private sector actively participates in providing farmers with extension services [31–34]. The main private companies that supply seeds, insecticides, and herbicides to farmers as part of extension services are the input suppliers. In contrast to public extension, these profit-driven businesses and organisations place a special emphasis on teaching and training farmers on how to use their products to maximise their sales. The agricultural productivity of the main crops farmed in the nation is, however, rather poor when compared to other nearby countries and farming systems, even with such a vast network of both public and private extension [35–38]. There are a number of reasons for low agricultural output, but one major one is because farmers are not implementing contemporary production techniques because they lack or have inadequate technical knowledge and farm management skills [39–44]. It is challenging to defend massive public investments in the midst of the nation’s dire financial crisis for the upkeep of a vast public extension network and institutions that don’t significantly affect the growth of the country’s agriculture or food security. Examining how well the public agriculture department performs in terms of the extension and consulting services it offers to the farming community with the goal of educating and building their capacity about contemporary agricultural techniques and practices is one way to gauge the impact. In light of this, the current study set out to evaluate the opinions of rice farmers on public extension services and examine their own viewpoints regarding various strategies for increasing rice production in order to meet domestic demand as well as export to foreign markets.

2. MATERIAL AND METHODS

Study was conducted in Pakistan district Gujranwala. Among these are Aroop, Khiali Shahpur, Nandipur, Wazirabad, Kamoke, Qila Didar Singh, and Nowshera Virkan. The tehsil is the lowest administrative entity and consists of multiple villages [45]. Gujranwala has an area of about 3622 square kilometres [45]. The district has a total population of approximately 5.01 million [46] according to the 2017 census. The area has varying temperatures all year long due to its semi-arid climate. Summertime temperatures can get as high as 42 °C. Wintertime temperatures can fall as low as 7 °C. July through August is the monsoon season, when the most precipitation falls. The average amount of precipitation during the other months of the year is roughly 25 mm. The majority of the area’s rural residents work as farmers. The district has over 0.778 million acres under cultivation overall [47]. Large areas of land are grown with Pakistan’s finest Basmati rice, which is prized for its unique aroma. Overall, wheat, rice, corn, millet, and oilseed crops like canola and sunflower are the most common crops farmed in the region [48]. With 93% of the cultivated land dedicated to rice, it is the main crop during the Kharif season. Eighty percent of the farmed area is planted with wheat during the Rabi season. The two main primary sources of irrigation are groundwater abstraction through tube wells and perennial canals. Approximately 38% of farmers are categorised as small landholders, 54% as medium-sized farmers, and 8% as large-scale commercial farmers, according government sources [47]. To carry out the study, a cross-sectional survey was used as the research design. We used a multi-stage random sampling strategy for sampling. Two tehsils from the Gujranwala district, Kamoke and Nowshera Virkan, were chosen at random for the first stage. Twenty villages, ten from each of the two tehsils, were chosen at random for the second stage. For the purpose of gathering the final data, 200 farmers—ten from each of the 20 randomly chosen villages—were chosen in the third step. A team of researchers from King Saud University in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia’s Department of Agricultural Extension and Rural Society created the research questionnaire. Prior to commencing the data collection process, the King Saud University Deanship of Scientific Research’s Research Ethics Committee permission was also secured. Furthermore, prior to gathering the data, the farmers’ verbal informed consent was obtained. They received a clear explanation from us that participation was completely voluntary and that the information gathered would only be utilized for academic research. Structured interviews were used to gather data; to guarantee a consistent pattern, all farmers were asked the same questions in the same order and with the same language. Seven of the 200 farmers who were chosen for the interview were unavailable. Every interview lasted thirty to forty minutes. In order to test the questionnaire and assess the internal consistency of the Likert Scale—which is used to gauge farmers’ opinions regarding public extension services—a pilot study comprising thirty farmers was carried out prior to the final data collection. A reliability analysis using Cronbach alpha produced a score of 0.83. According to a number of research, a high degree of internal consistency on the Likert Scale is indicated by an alpha coefficient value above 0.70 [49–53]. There were three sections on the research questionnaire. Questions about socioeconomic and demographic traits were covered in the first segment. It asked about the rice farmers’ age, amount of formal education completed, agricultural experience, size and kind of landholding, and sources of income. The opinions of rice farmers regarding the extension and advising services provided by the government Agriculture Department (AD) were the subject of questions in the second section. The rice farmers were questioned concerning the various extension services offered by the AD with the goal of enlightening them and enhancing their expertise in rice farming. Their opinions towards public extension services were ascertained using a five-point Likert scale: 1 = Strongly Disagree; 2 = Disagree; 3 = Undecided; 4 = Agree; and 5 = Strongly Agree. The final component of the questionnaire asked questions concerning the farmers’ visits by public extension officers, the sources of agricultural knowledge that farmers use, and their ideas on how to increase rice production in Punjab. To analyse the data, both inferential and descriptive statistics were applied. Frequencies and percentages were used to summarise the farmers’ socioeconomic and demographic traits. Percentages were also used to tabulate the opinions of farmers towards public extension services. On the Likert scale, “strongly agree” and “agree” categories were combined into one category of “agree,” while “strongly disagree” and “disagree” categories were combined into one category of “disagree.” Farmers were divided into three groups using a new ordinal variable that was computed based on their Likert scale values (1 = Poorly satisfied; 2 = Moderately satisfied; 3 = Highly satisfied). The Spearman Rank-Order correlation was used to determine a relationship between farmers’ opinions regarding public extension services and ordinal demographic and socioeconomic factors (age, education level, farming experience, landholding size, and extension agents’ visits to farmers). The Statistical Package for Social Sciences (IBM SPSS v27.0) was used for all of the studies.

3. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

The socioeconomic and demographic details of the rice farmers in the research region are displayed in Table 1. Twenty-four percent or so of the farmers were under 40. Three quarters of them (39%) were in the age range of 41 to 50. Approximately 37% of the farmers were older than 50. Of the farmers, about 18% did not have any formal schooling. Roughly 26 percent of them reported having only completed their primary education. Approximately 24% of the farmers in the sample met the intermediate criterion for educational qualifications. Just 15% of rice farmers claimed having completed at least Matric schooling, while almost 17% said they had completed higher education. This represents a low number of farmers who reported having completed Matric or above. A quarter of the respondents had more than 20 years of experience farming, making up about 43% of those with 11 to 20 years of experience. Approximately 74% of the farmers have less than 20 years of experience in farming as a group. About 31% of the farmers in the study area reported having landholding sizes of less than 10 acres (4.04 ha), while the majority of them (60%) owned agricultural holdings measuring less than 20 acres (8.09 ha). Approximately 22% of farmers possessed more than 30 acres (12.14 hectares) of land. Just about 11% of the rice farmers said that they had rented agricultural land for farming, compared to the overwhelming majority (89%) who were landowners. Approximately 43% of rice farmers made their living from both cultivation and other minor side ventures. Approximately 38% of the farmers said that their only source of income came from farming. In addition, around 25% of them stated that their primary source of income was not agriculture but rather other companies. The findings of the rice farmers’ opinions regarding public extension services are shown in Table 2. The claim that the federal Agriculture Department (AD) held field demonstrations about novel crop types and contemporary production techniques throughout the rice season was disputed by roughly 61% of rice producers. Regarding the random selection of farmer fields for field demonstrations, they (61%) disagreed as well; only 25% of farmers agreed that farmer fields were chosen at random for field demonstrations. The majority of farmers (57%) felt that the AD was not providing advice regarding how to prepare land for rice transplanting and nursery sowing. The claim that the AD supplied information on irrigation and fertiliser application techniques for rice crops was disputed by about 64% of respondents. About 42% of farmers thought that the AD supplied information to control insects, pests, and illnesses, whereas over half (54%) of farmers disagreed with the advice offered regarding crop protection measures. The claim that the AD supplied information on appropriate post-harvest techniques for rice crop management was disputed by about 68% of respondents. Seventy-nine percent of the farmers disagreed that the AD taught rice farmers how to improve their marketing abilities. Seventy-nine percent disagreed that the AD assisted rice farmers in selling their yield at a profit. Approximately 60% of the farmers said that they had never received a visit from an extension agent. Approximately 17% of them disclosed that the public extension agents only paid them a visit once every six months. Merely 13% of the farmers said that agricultural extension agents paid them a monthly visit.

Table 01: Socioeconomic characteristics

Table 02: Rice farmers’ views about public extension services

In this study, we sought to evaluate the opinions of rice farmers in Punjab, Pakistan, with relation to public extension and consulting services as well as various strategies for increasing rice output. Based on a demographic and socioeconomic profile analysis, the majorities of farmers is under 50 years old and have fewer than 20 years of experience in farming. Given that younger farmers are seen as more inventive due to their capacity to reach better levels of overall agricultural production and profitability, age may have an impact on agricultural productivity [54, 55]. Experience on the farm can also increase a farmer’s technical ability and attitude towards implementing better farming techniques [56,57,58]. Of them, one-fifth have no formal education, and almost half have completed the eighth grade or less. The majority of those working in agriculture in Pakistan typically have no formal education [59, 60]. This is also one of the main causes of the nation’s poor productivity levels and inefficient use of resources. Numerous research investigations have documented a noteworthy correlation between farmers’ educational attainment and their technical proficiency [56, 57]. Even though the vast majority of farmers own their land instead of renting it, most of them only possess very tiny amounts of land (less than 8 hectares). Approximately 90% of Punjab’s farms are smaller than 10 hectares, making up roughly 69% of the province’s total land area, according to the agricultural census conducted in 2016–2017 [61]. Larger landowners tend to be more productive and have greater economic potential [62–64]. The long-term sustainability of land is also known to be influenced by land ownership; landowner farmers exhibit higher levels of innovation and concern for the physical well-being of their holdings [65]. Although significantly more farmers utilise both agriculture and other commercial ventures to supplement their income, nearly two-fifths of farmers rely solely on agriculture for their revenue. Farmers are forced to look into alternative livelihood generation options in addition to agriculture in order to supplement their income due to market fluctuations and low profitability.

4. CONCLUSION

The goal of the current study was to find out what Pakistani rice farmers thought about public extension services and how different approaches may be used to increase rice output. The vast majority of rice farmers expressed dissatisfaction with the extension and consulting services that the provincial government’s Agriculture Department had to provide. Large landholding farmers are quite happy with public extension services because they receive preferential treatment from extension workers. The skewed perspective of public extension agents on large-scale farmers has significant consequences for rural development and the food security of the country. Not only do small farmers make up the majority of farmers, but they also typically lack sophisticated agricultural knowledge, expertise, and managerial abilities. The deliberate failure of extension agents to assist these farmers would have a negative impact on farm income and profitability in addition to agricultural output. In light of the limited number of extension workers that extension authorities have claimed, it is recommended that the Agriculture Department hire more graduates in agriculture to help spread agricultural advances in rural areas. Creating public-private partnerships with the local input supply companies that currently provide seeds and herbicides is one feasible alternative. In exchange for their services in providing training to resource-poor farmers, the government may offer them some privileges in the form of reduced taxes and tariffs. Similarly, by sharing their goals and appreciating their efforts, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) that focus on rural development could also be included in this process. Furthermore, low agricultural productivity makes it difficult for farmers to meet the food demands of a nation whose population is expanding quickly, endangering national food security. One significant source of export revenue, Basmati rice shipments, may decline if rice output declines. To improve the efficiency and demand-driven nature of public extension services for rice farmers and other farmers, the government should prioritise strengthening the technical and managerial abilities of small-scale subsistence farmers. It is challenging to achieve sustainable growth in this sector and equitable agricultural transformation without developing the ability of small-scale farmers. Furthermore, in order to guarantee the resilience of farming enterprises in the wake of climate change, public extension services must be expanded from basic crop protection measures to a more comprehensive set of sustainable agricultural and climate-smart practices that address every facet of crop production. To increase rice production in Pakistan, the government must support the supply of inexpensively subsidised agricultural inputs and set a minimum support price for rice that is comparable to that for wheat crops. This must be done in addition to simplifying public extension services. The current state of the nation’s economy indicates that the rural economy will be severely impacted if the government does not offer any concrete assistance in the form of cost subsidies. This will subsequently have an effect on urban consumers who depend on rural farmers for their food needs.

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