Journal Article vo.20, issue no. 2
In response to inadequate knowledge, skills and attitudes by agricultural extension staff, the
Midcareer BSc. Applied Agricultural extension was developed and implemented in 1998 by the
Sokoine University of agriculture (SUA), in collaboration with Sasakawa Africa Fund for
Extension Education (SAFE). The Supervised Enterprise Project (SEP) is an innovative
component of the programme that employs experiential and action research principles. Since the
implementation of the midcareer programme and its SEPs component in Tanzania, the
programme impact on farmers has not been established and therefore the paper intends to fill
the gap. Data were collected from 100 graduates and 105 farmers from selected regions in
Tanzania. Focus group discussion and observations were used to supplement the collected
information. The quantitative and qualitative data were analyzed by using the Statistical
Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) and content analysis, respectively. The findings show that
SEP introduced practices mainly related to livestock and crop production, post-harvest handling
and agricultural marketing. Generally, SEP was identified as the strongest component within the
BSc. AEE programme that has impact on farmers. This has been justified by the fact that farmers
had positive perception and high expectations from practices implemented by SEP, which
resulted to diffusion of implemented practices and their adoption by farmers. Farmers were
assisted to improve their yield, food security, income and livelihood. Challenges that affected
implementation of SEP include inadequate funds and time, low involvement of stakeholders and
inadequate follow up by students after their graduation. This calls the need for allocation of
adequate resources to the program, involving of important stakeholders as well as smooth hand
over of the implemented SEP to the field extension staff for its sustainability