An Appraisal of Agricultural Extension Staff's Attitude Towards Poverty-Oriented Agricultural Extension: The Case of Fars Province

Nowadays, most of scholars believe agricultural extension mission in new development paradigm should be toward poverty alleviation. Agricultural extension has done limited activities toward poverty alleviation. Even in those few countries that agricultural extension has done some activities in order to poverty alleviation, it has limited to some sparse projects without continuity. Nevertheless, attention to poverty-oriented agricultural extension is increasing across the world. Enhancing extension staff’s attitude toward poverty-oriented agricultural extension is an important prerequisite. Whereas, there is no evidence toward research which has been done in this context in Iran, analysis of agricultural extension staff’s attitude toward poverty-oriented agricultural extension was the main objective of this research. Based on a random proportional stratified sampling, 192 of agricultural extension staff in Fars province were selected and data were collected using survey method. The research findings revealed that about 55 percent of extension staff had positive attitude toward poverty-oriented agricultural extension. With regard to rural poverty, five categories causes (included cultural, governmental, environmental, individual and socio-structural) were determined among staff. Accordingly, individual causes and then socio-structural factors were more emphasized. Extension staff who attribute the causes of rural poverty to socio-structural, governmental and environmental factors, had more positive attitude toward the necessity of poverty-oriented agricultural extension. Findings also indicated that there is a significant and positive correlation between the attitude toward the mission of poverty alleviation in agricultural system and attitude toward poverty-oriented extension. Variables included age; interest to work with rural people; perception of economical status; income; assets; experience; and amount of contact with rural areas had a significant relationship with attitude toward the necessity of poverty-oriented extension. Furthermore, the staff settled in rural areas had a more positive attitude toward the necessity of poverty-oriented extension. Some applicable recommendations have presented at the end of the article based on research findings.