REACHING AGRICULTURAL EXTENSION AUDIENCE

Agricultural extension in its essence is an educational communication process aimed at making desired and specific changes in the behaviour of its audience in their knowledge, skills, attitudes, and aspirations to improve their standard of living as individuals, families, and community. The extension uses many extension teaching methods to achieve its objectives and goals. These methods vary widely, enabling agricultural extension officers to meet the differences among their audience who are different in their needs, wishes, and interests, in addition to their education level, age, experience, and other characteristics that affect their response to the extension work. The results of the agricultural extension researches and field observations of the extension work confirmed that the effectiveness of the work of the extension officer is determined by the extent of his efficiency in the use of extension teaching methods and audiovisual aids, and therefore his understanding of the capabilities and limits of extension teaching methods, audiovisual aids, and their availability to him is of importance in order to ensure the selection of the most appropriate and efficient use of them.