رسائل ماجيستير
English
2003
Biscuits from Composite Flour of Wheat and Sorghum
Ibtihag Awad Abdalla Mahmoud, Paul Lado Bureng
كلية الهندسة-جامعة الخرطوم · السودان
The study is designed to assess the effectiveness of perceived benefits from ACORD's smallholders assistance project, in improving the living conditions of the people in the ten studied Villages in Juba Rural Area council of Bahr El Jebel State. The impact is assessed in terms of adoption and diffusion of innovations for the benefits of community affected The conceptual model and the hypothesis of the adoption and diffusion of innovations used in the study involved the Nature of Innovation and its characteristics of perceived risk, cost, perceived complexity, availability and profitability as influencing factors for the innovations to be adopted and diffused into the social system. In the same study a number of Dependable variables were used, which include perceived benefits, diversification of field crops and diversification of horticultural crops, while the casual variables include age, education, farm size, exposure to extension training and innovativeness. Also in the study pathsets and regression analyses were used where age has been used as exogenous variable as well as intercorrilation matrix In the study a number of analytical techniques were used for the testing of hypothesis which included descriptive statistics, tabular analysis (frequency distribution) correlation, regression, t-test and F-test respectively. The descriptive analysis and tabular analysis have been used to describe the different variables in the study. Correlation is to determine the degree of association between variables, while regression analysis is to test the relationship between dependent and independent variables. The t-test of analysis is to show the significance of the differences between male and female group means as well as determining factors affecting the perceived benefits from ACORD's programme, which make up the ultimate measure of the benefit. The area of study included the ten Villages along the East and West banks of the Nile, at about fifteen miles radius around Juba Town. The Villages were selected using a quota basis were in each Village fifteen households were selected systematically (every fourth house was selected regardless of sex of the household member present in the house). Primary data were collected using structured questionnaire and interview scheduled by the author, assisted by a team of five research assistants. The secondary data were collected from ACORD's field office in Juba and Khartoum as well as information collected from various libraries in Juba and Khartoum contributing to the literature review. Major Findings and Recommendations During the data analysis the following emerged as the major finding and the recommendations provided to correct the situation. ACCORD introduced mainly innovations in a very short time ranging from simple to complex innovations. As such the impact on the adoption rate was minimal. It is recommended that your organization introduce few innovations at any one time starting with simple ones, which can provide immediate and profitable results to the community members. The tractor hire service proved to be one of the most successful innovations at the beginning. But it decline later because very few of the tractors were being use in comparison to the farmers demanding their use, as a result, also of breakdown and lack of spare parts as well as qualified mechanics to carry out repair on time. It is recommended that your organization provide enough tractors to cover all the villages and to provide the spare parts immediately when need arises. It should also train enough mechanics to carry out on the sport repairs in case of break down. The few water irrigation pumps introduce to a number of villages proved successful. But shortages of fuel and spare parts to these fuel pumps were a drawback to the success of the innovations. It is recommended that fuel, spar parts, and mechanics be made available by the organization to necessitate continuity of the project. Lack of transportation of the product to the market centres in Juba town limited the production of the food commodities. It is recommended that the organization and state ministry of agriculture provide transport to the farmers such as bicycles or motorboats or even ordinary boats on loan to the farmers as incentives to encourage them to produce more crops for the market. The exchange farmers visits to different villages has helped to bring the farmers together and to learn from each other experiences as well as to share ideas. It is recommended that the organization formalizes and regularizes these visits to include those communities or villages that are not yet exposed to the program. The majority of the community members in the ten villages are illiterate, and this has contributed to the low rate of adoption and subsequent diffusion of the innovations. It is recommended that the state ministry of education in particular the department of adult education intensify on-going literacy campaign program in collaboration with the university of Juba department of adult education, to include in their curriculum functional literacy in all the villages to encourage learning. There are several NGOs working the same villages carrying out the same activities as those of ACCORD. This has created duplication of efforts and confusion among the community members as recipients of the introduced innovations. To avoid this, it is recommended that all the organization concerned come together and spell out what each one is to be involve in a particular innovation and this need the presence of state government as the main stakeholder so as to reduce these anomalies. The ratio of each village extension worker to the number of farming communities is 1:1000. This makes it difficult for the agent to efficiently cover all the farmers in his/her location through interpersonal communication. It is recommended that the state ministry of agriculture and natural resources train enough village level extension worker/agent to reduce the ration to a manageable level for effective performances. ACCORD has spread itself thinly on the ground by involving itself in so many activities (e.g. HIV/AIDS, Relief work, Education, Agriculture, Gender issues, etc.) with limited resources and budgets. As a result, it has little impact on some of these activities. It is therefore recommended that the organization concentrate its efforts on agriculture development as its main area of activities and live the rest of the activities to other agencies. The program has witness and is continuing to have serious disruptions from regular visits and supervisions by the extension agents and management team to the farmers. This due to the delays in issuing movement permits by the security organs and this has affected the rate of adoption and diffusion of the introduced innovations. It is recommended that the national government work hard to bring about a comprehensive and lasting peace to the whole country
