The study assessed various motivating factors and level of job satisfaction of staff in large-scale private agricultural farms in Ogun State, Nigeria. A total of 90 employees from five purposively selected farms were surveyed using structured questionnaire for data collection. The findings of the study show that high remuneration, promotion, good pension scheme, job security and recognition of staff were rated as very important motivating factors. There was also no significant relationship between socio-economic characteristics and motivational factors. The results further show that high proportions of staff are poorly motivated due to their non-participation in decision-making process and the reward system appears not encouraging. However, employees were satisfied with the rate and basis of promotion. It is therefore suggested that there should be a change in policy among large-scale private farms to improve organizational effectiveness by improving reward system and involving employees in decision-making process.

It is obvious that the use of newspapers is one of the ways through which literate farmers could access agriculture-related information and are acquainted with innovations in agriculture. This study investigated the content of agricultural training advertisements in three Nigerian newspapers: The Guardian, Nigerian Tribune and Daily Times. Using multistage sampling techniques, 240 editions of these newspapers containing 609 advertisements for five years (2001)(2002)(2003)(2004)(2005) were selected. In terms of agricultural subsectoral coverage, 30.3% were on veterinary services while forestry services recorded the least advertisement (4.0 %). The Nigerian Tribune newspaper has the highest coverage of agricultural training advertisements 40.7% compared to the 34.7% and 12.2% for Daily Times and Guardian newspapers, respectively. The result also showed that majority of agricultural training advertisements (81.10%) were placed on the non-prominent pages of the selected newspapers. Chi-Square analysis of association between the categories of agricultural training advertisements in the focal newspapers showed that there is significant relationship in the rate at which the sampled newspapers advertise different category of agricultural training advertisements in the newspapers (p<0.05). Chi square analysis also indicated that there is significant association between the placements of agricultural training advertisements and type of newspapers (p<0.05). This implies that advertisement placement on prominent pages of newspapers is determined by the policy of print media organization which also varies with cost of advertisement. It is therefore recommended that agricultural news items should be given more prominence as a panacea for increased information source to new entrants, especially the literate farmers to encourage farming.

University outreach is an educational and research-based information source enabling farmers to make decisions that improve the quality of their lives. This paper explores how collaborative efforts between the university and farmers have directly impacted in albeit Striga ('noxious witch weed') ravaged maize farms in rainforest farming systems in southwest Nigeria. Data were collected using pre-tested instruments from cross-section of 280 participating and non-participating farmers. Logistic regression results indicated that certain coefficient estimates such as gender, regularity of extension contact, membership of farmers' group, female adult aged 16 and above, assistance in the provision of tractor-hiring services and improved crop yields were found to be statistically significant at p B/0.05. Furthermore, findings from sample statistics were reflections of peasantry as majority of the farmers had small mean farm size, large household size and low annual income from sales of maize crop. The major conclusion that could be drawn from the study is that the provision of extension by the university coupled with other factors have had significant positive influence on decision to adopt introduced cultural practices with attendant improvement on the well-being of participating farmers.

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