Assessing professional competencies of agricultural extension workers: A case study of Indonesian’s agribusiness sector

Abstract

The issue of professional competencies is not a new or  unusual one for professional fields, including in Agribusiness  sector. In line with the demands of today's high competitive  organizations, professional  competencies  become the  central  of management job descriptions for a corpus of individuals or person. This paper describes the  study result of a assessment  of  Professional Competencies of Agricultural Extension Workers (AEWs) in Province Gorontalo, Indonesia. The objectives of this  study are as follows: (1) to identify competencies that can be  applied to agricultural extension agents in agribusiness rice  in  the sub-district Kabila and subdistrict Tilongkabila, Gorontalo,  Indonesia,  (2)  to  find  out the  factors  that  influence agricultural  extension agents’ competence in agribusiness rice in the sub-district Kabila and  sub-district  Tilongkabila.  This type of research is descriptive statistics. The method used in this study is a survey  method, where data collected through interviews and questionnaires. Based on the study, competency of agricultural extension agents in the Kabila and Tilongkabila sub-districts on rice agribusiness consisting: the ability to design educational programs, the  ability to implement education  programs  and  the  ability to manage information dissemination. While the factors that influence agricultural extension agents’  competence, namely:  knowledge, skills and attitudes of educators in designing educational programs, counseling programs to implement and manage agricultural field officer information.