Agricultural Engineers' Awareness of the Role of Agricultural Marketing Extension under Globalization in Qalyubia Governorate

The research mainly aimed at determining the level of awareness of the current and future role of agricultural extension in the field of marketing guidance under the policy of economic liberalization (globalization) from the viewpoint of agricultural engineers in Qalyubia Governorate, by achieving the following sub-objectives:
1-    Determining the extent of agricultural engineers’ awareness of the current and future role of agricultural extension in the field of marketing extension.
2-    Knowing the views of agricultural engineers regarding the advancement of their tasks in the field of marketing guidance regarding: The most appropriate dates for them for training, the location of the training courses, their preferred methods of training, and the trainers in charge of the training.
3-    Proposing an action plan for a training program for the development of marketing guidance under globalization or economic liberalization from the viewpoint of agricultural engineers according to their personal, communicative, social characteristics, and their level of awareness of the marketing advisory role.
To achieve these goals, a questionnaire form was designed that was collected in a personal interview with a sample of 121 respondents from agricultural engineers (specialists, technicians) in Qalyubia Governorate, and the frequencies, numbers, percentages, and averages were used to display the data and arrange the tasks specific to the role performed by agricultural engineers, in the field of marketing counseling.
The most important results are as follows:
1-    More than two-thirds of the respondents had a low or medium vision of the current advisory role, indicating the severe relative decline in the performance of the workers in the extension services.
2-    The arrangement of extension activities according to the weighted average of the current role of agricultural extension in the field of consumption and marketing of agricultural crops from the viewpoint of agronomists, was arranged as follows: “The farmers' application of correct practices when transporting the crop according to its nature” in the first order with a weighted average of (50, 3). The degree of “farmers’ use of indicative aids (data show) and advisory bulletins for marketing and extension in the last rank with a weighted average of (33.3) degrees, and the rest of the extension activities ranked from the second to the fifth.
3-    The division of the current role in the field of marketing and consumption of agricultural crops into three categories according to the degree of performance of the respondents for this role, the results indicated that the low performance was limited to (33.3 - 40.3) degrees, and the average performance was limited to (40.3 - 47.3) degrees, and the high performance, which reached (47.3) degrees or more.
4-    A proposal for an indicative action plan for a training program has been drawn up for agricultural engineers working in the field of agricultural extension in general, and marketing guidance, and it has been considered that it be based on the study of the situation and the field results reached by this research.
5-    The most important problems that the surveyed agricultural engineers faced, which hinder their performance in the extension work in the study area under the economic liberalization policy, were as follows: problems related to agricultural work, problems facing extension work, problems related to extension human resources, problems related to material resources, problems related to job satisfaction for agronomists.