تحليل الفجوة المعرفية للزراع والعاملين بالجهاز الإرشادي بمحافظة أسيوط في مجال الاستخدام الآمن للمبيدات

This research endeavors generally to analyze the knowledge gap of farmers and extension personnel in Assiut Governorate, Egypt in the area of safe use of pesticides, by achieving the following aims: Recognizing the levels of perceived and calculated knowledge needs for farmers and extension personnel about pesticide safe use recommendations; Determining the perceived and calculated knowledge needs for farmers and extension personnel about pesticide safe use recommendations; Arranging the pesticide safe use recommendations according to the perceived and calculated knowledge needs for farmers and extension personnel; Identifying the significance of the differences between farmers and extension personnel in the perceived knowledge gap about pesticide safe use recommendations; Defining the significance of the differences between farmers and extension personnel in the calculated knowledge gap about pesticide safe use recommendations. The study was conducted on two groups of respondents; the first included 39 respondents from extension personnel in Assiut Governorate, and the other included 146 farmers who were chosen from three villages randomly selected from three districts in Assiut Governorate. Data were collected using questionnaire form during August 2019. Frequencies, percentages, arithmetic mean, and Mann Whitney test were used for data presentation and analysis. The results showed the emergence of knowledge gap for the majority of farmers and extension personnel, ranging from high level in perceived gap, and medium level in calculated gap. Concerning the studied recommendations separately, it came to clear that the perceived knowledge gap for farmers and extension personnel was high, while the calculated knowledge gap was moderate for most of these recommendations. The results indicated the difference in the studied recommendations' ranks between perceived and calculated gaps, whether for farmers or extension personnel, due to the emergence of unfelt knowledge needs for the respondents. The results also showed that the differences between the perceived knowledge gap of farmers and extension personnel were not significant, while these differences were significant with respect to the calculated knowledge gap for most of the studied recommendations. Finally, the study recommends to close the knowledge gap for farmers and extension personnel through preparing the necessary extension and training programs for farmers and extension personnel, taking into account the priorities of their knowledge needs in the form of the most needed recommendations ranks, which indicated by the current study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]