Abstract
This study was conducted in fifty randomly selected villages of Faisalabad Tehsil to assess the need of agricultural education for young farmers. The data col-lected from 250 randomly selected young farmers disclosed that a simple majority of the respondents did not adopt improved cultivation methods. An overwhelming majority suggested that their working efficiency could he enhanced by offering them short term courses in agriculture. Imparting training to young farmers by the Exten-sion Department and providing literature by the Information Bureau were the common suggestions presented by the respondents.
INTRODUCTION
Youth is the most important segment of farming community. They are more ener-getic, vigorous, enthusiastic and receptive to a change. Despite all this, it has become very difficult for them to keep pace with the modern farming world changing every mo-ment. With technology advancement, farm-ing has become considerably complicated. So lack of sufficient information on the part of young farmers is, limiting productivity. Medeley (1984) reported that radio was the most effective media to transfer fertilizer use benefits to the growers in Nepal. The improvement scheme aimed at demonstrat-ing to the farmers that fertilimr used could significantly increase their crop yield with little extra labour particularly if applied alongwith new cropping techniques. The present study was, therefore, undertaken to assess the need of agricultural education for the young farmers and to make suitable rec-ommendations.
MATERIALS AND METHODS
This study was confined to Faisalabad
Tehsil. Out of total 257 villages, 50 were se-lected at random. From each village, five young farmers were selected randomly thus the sample was 250 farmers. An interview schedule was developed, Respondents were interviewed personally and data collected were analysed and interpreted by using sim-ple percentages.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
The study showed that about 56% re-spondents responded negatively to adoption of improved cultivation methods. Only about 44% replied positively. This is in line with the findings of Ather (1982) and Hussain (1982).
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The study indicated that an over-whelming majority (98%) of the respondents acknowledged that supply of agriculture in-formation would inspire them to adopt im-proved production technology (Table 1). Only 1% of the respondents gave a negative response in this regard. This might be due to their farming ignorance about the role of agricultural education in farming develop-ment.
