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Tropentag 2022, September 14 - 16, Prague, Germany

"Can agroecological farming feed the world? Farmers' and academia's views."


Agricultural extension workers job satisfaction in sub-Saharan Africa: Role of employee safety perception in Nigeria

Pius Nnahiwe, Sylvester Amoako Agyemang, Miroslava Bavorová

Czech University of Life Sciences Prague, Fac. of Tropical AgriScience - Dept. of Economics and Development, Czech Republic


Abstract


Literature is littered with evidence that farmers within the sub-Saharan African context lack access to quality agricultural extension services due to the possible low morale of extension agents. This poor job motivation among extension staff may be also connected to the extension work environment on the field with recent civil unrest spikes, transhumance-related violence and farmer-herder/pastoralist-farmer conflicts in sub-Saharan Africa. The negative effect of these incidents, especially the farmer-herder disputes, have been felt in rural agriculture and probably on the safety of most extension workers disseminating information within the affected communities. Some studies have examined the direct consequence of employee safety perception on health, but there remains a dearth of evidence investigating the impact of employee safety on job satisfaction. Despite these complex realities, to the best of our knowledge, no empirical study has been conducted to investigate how the safety perceptions of extension workers impact their job satisfaction in sub-Saharan Africa. We investigated the impact of extrinsic rewards on job satisfaction drawing empirical evidence from 170 agricultural extension workers in Oyo State, Nigeria. The quantitative and qualitative data were collected in 2021. We examine job satisfaction as a psychosocial outcome, using social exchange theory to predict the effect of employee safety perception on job satisfaction. Binary logit regression result shows that higher job safety perceptions increase the probability of an agricultural extension worker reporting a higher level of job satisfaction. To contribute to the advancement of social exchange theory concerning job satisfaction determinants in developing countries, we conclude with a consistency check with the theory and its implications for practice.


Keywords: Logit model, farmer-herder conflict, social exchange theory, Sub-Saharan Africa


Contact Address: Pius Nnahiwe, Czech University of Life Sciences Prague, Fac. of Tropical AgriScience - Dept. of Economics and Development, Kamycka 129, 16500 Prague, Czech Republic, e-mail: nnahiwe@ftz.czu.cz


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