Actual role of agricultaral extension in the field of raising of sheep and goats

The study aimed at identifying some socio-economic characteristic of sheep and goats breeders, measuring the actual role of agricultural extension in this field, and the most important variables affecting it, identifying the most important problems facing the breeder and their suggestions for solving them. Study was conducted in Fayoum governorate, two largest districts in terms of the number of sheep and goats were selected, namely Tamiya and Fayoum district and two largest villages were selected from each districts according to the same criterion, a simple random sample of 200 breeders, was selected. Data were collected by personal interviews guided by pre-tested questionnaire. Counting tables, percentages, range, Pearson simple correlation analysis, step wise multiple regression analysis were used to analysis data.
          Findings reported that 60.5% had an average family size, 28% of them have no land holding, the vast majority of the breeders (93%) owned small numbers of sheep and goats, 62.5% had a low degree of cosmopolitiness, 71.5% of them had an ambition level average or high, the most important sources of information for sheep and goats breeders were personal experiences, relatives, and veterinary unit as mentioned by 88%, 76.5%, 62.5%, respectively. The results also showed a decrease in the actual role of agricultural extension, where 74% indicated that it was has not role, compared to only 4.5% of them indicated that it was high. It was found that the attitudes towards agricultural extension, total degree of adequacy of services provided by actors, the number of sheep and goats, degree of awareness of the importance of sheep and goats breeders were the most variables affecting the actual of agricultural extension in field of sheep and goats, these variables were responsible of 54.3% of variance of the dependent variable. Findings showed that the most important problems facing the breeders were: high feed prices (87.5%), high prices and shortage of concentrates (85.5%), training shortage of technical staff (67%), lack of opportunities to attend courses training (67%), not announce about extension seminars (55.5%), short of financial resources (53%).