Evaluating farmers' perception towards extension service delivery during the Covid-19 pandemic : a case study of Ga-Mothapo Village, Limpopo Province, South Africa

Abstract

Agricultural extension plays an important role in enhancing agricultural productivity and food security. The aim of the study was to evaluate the perceptions of small-scale farmers towards extension service delivery during the COVID-19 pandemic from hard lockdown level 5 to 3, to inform policy makers about the current extension service delivery and its challenges in Ga-Mothapo village. However, during the COVID-19 pandemic, restrictions of movement of people were put in place to control the spread of the virus and this created a challenge for both farmers and extension officers to find alternative ways to communicate and work together. The study was conducted in Ga-Mothapo Village, Limpopo Province, South Africa. The sample size of the study was 73 small-scale farmers that was farmers calculated using Cochran’s formula (Cochran, 1977). The primary data was collected through semi-structured questionnaire and face-to-face interviews. The qualitative data was coded with arbitrary numbers that were analysed using statistical package for social science (IBM SPSS) software version 29 (2022). The Likert scale was further used to analyze data that yield descriptive statistics to acquire frequency, percentages, standard deviation, and the mean score. Findings of the study is that majority of small-scale farmers participated in the study were male (56%) and female (44%), 63% of the sample attended secondary school, 72%) of small-scale farmers received financial support in a form of vouchers with a restricted purchase in selected stores. The study also found that information communication technology (ICT) channels were used by small-scale farmers to communicate with customers during COVID-19 pandemic hard lockdowns level 5 to 3. The study recommended the following: the use of Cell phones should be encouraged as primary source of ICT channels to communicate information with the farmers, The Department of Agriculture Land and Rural Development, when supporting farmers in the form of vouchers to buy farm inputs, should not limit the farmers to purchase only to selected stores, furthermore the Government should create a policy that ensures that prices do not go beyond market price and that it should create common storage for small scale farmers.