A Knowledge Test for Agricultural Extension Personnel on Agri-Nutrition

Agriculture can be leveraged to improve health and nutrition. Knowledge is critical for concrete development outcomes. With a lot of information on nutritional health, nutrients and bio-fortified crops, different sectors and several stakeholders working for one common purpose, such as to recommend crops for best nutrient uses, with purpose to bridge different pockets of working knowledge and to address it through one common platform. Thus a study to test knowledge among extensionists in such required aspects of agriculture, was conducted in the Uttar Pradesh (UP) and Odisha States. The backward districts, in UP the village of districts Auraiya, Jalaun and Chitrakut and in Odisha various villages of Sonepur district were selected through random sampling technique. A knowledge test was developed to assess the knowledge of extensionists on general nutritional health, nutrients and bio-fortified crops. A preliminary test of knowledge, with items was initially adminis tered to 30 extensionists. The knowledge test included classified items based on the difficulty index and discrimination index. The test was administered to 200 extensionists. The respondents were grouped into three categories on the basis of their knowledge towards Agri-Nutrition by using Mean ± S.D formula. It was found that most of the extensionists (54.50%) had moderate level of knowledge, whereas 24 per cent had low followed by 21.5 per cent of the respondents who had high level of the knowledge on general nutritional health, nutrients and bio-fortified crops.