Study The Administrative Efficiency of The Agricultural Extension and Training Organization According to The Opinions of Agricultural Extension Workers and Its Relationship to Some Factors in The Southern of Iraq

The research aimed to identify the level of administrative efficiency of the agricultural extension organization and training organization according to the opinions of agricultural extension workers in the southern governorates of Iraq., To conduct this study the sample was randomly selected from the studied governorates (40 respondents from Maysan Governorate, 40 respondents from Thi-Qar province, 42 respondents from the Governorate Basra, the total of research sample was 122 respondents), To collect the data by questionnaire techniques and interviews with the respondents. The data was collected through the personal interviews were adopted (June to July 2020). Statistical tools were used to analyze the data and the SPSS statistical program. The study found that the efficiency of the extension organization in the studied governorates is on average and the degree of efficiency is low in the extension organization.


1.Introduction
The agricultural development and its targeted product must depend on the three main pillars who are agricultural research, agricultural extension, and farmers, and this can only be achieved with full and close cooperation between these three poles, so there must be a continuous flow of information between these poles in a manner that guarantees Realizing the farmers' benefit from the results of agricultural scientific research represented in the agricultural research recommendations resulting from the agricultural scientific research centers presented as solutions to the realistic agricultural problems facing farmers in Iraq [1]. Agricultural extension is one of the distinguished educational devices in raising the productive capacities of farmers by providing them with everything new and suitable for application in agriculture to bring about desirable behavioral changes in their knowledge, attitudes, and skills as a means to advance the development process, relying in this on the results of scientific research, hence it is assumed The increasing interest of the state in the agricultural extension agent to play its effective role in bringing about targeted agricultural development, especially in the central and southern regions of Iraq, due to the characteristics it carries that help in agriculture, such as the availability of water, fertile land, and groundwater, such as Al-Muthanna province represented by its vast Baddani [2] .It is known that agricultural extension work at the local or executive level depends on the agricultural guide, as he is the one who bears the greatest burden in preparing the agricultural extension message and delivering it to the agricultural guides in the target areas and accordingly, agricultural extension workers are the direct implementers of the agricultural extension work [3]. The training of agricultural extension workers is an integral part of the overall agricultural production process. It is the duty of agricultural extension agents to reach farmers scattered around the country with useful and practical information for increased agricultural production, Through trained agricultural extension agents new agricultural technology can easily and favorably be transferred to clientele. Training should not be conducted at the time of agricultural time and lectures should be carried out during the training sessions and choose time suitable for agricultural extension workers. Thus, necessary steps should be taken to identify the unfelt needs of the IOP Conf. Series: Earth and Environmental Science 923 (2021) 012069 IOP Publishing doi:10.1088/1755-1315/923/1/012069 2 agricultural extension workers and strengthen their knowledge, skills and attitudes required for performing their job efficiently [4]. State that the agricultural extension service is a service that focuses on human development, and the agricultural economy is an activity that is driven, carried out and managed by people, meaning that it is a dynamic educational process and industry that requires agricultural extension workers to deal with change and help farmers to Understanding and responding to the changing consumer demands, the agricultural extension activity is no longer limited to the existence of agricultural technical competencies only, but also to understanding the broader social, economic and administrative organizational context of agriculture as an economical and lifestyle at the same time, so the agricultural extension process requires effectiveness and efficiency in the management of extension agencies taking into consideration the focus on four main administrative axes: in managing extension services programs and projects, in managing extension staff, managing networks and stakeholders, and cooperation and coordination between the extension agency and other organizations active in rural development, but more importantly in managing the relationship between the agency the extension and farmers by building confidence between the two parties and creating an environment conducive to the effective provision of extension services based on the efficiency of extension management. In addition to the necessity of agricultural extension workers possessing communication skills with others, the use of social intelligence, presentation skills, public speaking, and written communication, and the ability to use computer technologies, as these are the basic competencies required by agricultural extension workers [5]. The agricultural guide is a link and communication between two systems: the first is the organization to which it belongs, and the guided farmers who represent the external organization they work with, and the second is on them the burden of communication and continuation directly with the guides, and this role is linked to many agricultural extension activities that need direct contact with The guided audience in their farms and places of gathering to achieve the goals of the agricultural extension organization [6]. By paying attention to the agricultural extension organization and maximizing the role of the agricultural guide, it is possible to raise the level of efficiency of the agricultural extension organization to play an effective role in bringing about the targeted agricultural development, especially in central and southern Iraq. And that the concept of efficiency [7]. Has become an important concept and one of the most prominent terms common in institutions, especially in light of the changing circumstances that society in general and organizations in particular know in light of the new intellectual movements that care about the individual and considers it the central link in the most generating process of work and its development in Any organization providing its service to society, As the person or worker became the focus of attention not only inside the organization but also outside it by providing a set of conditions that help the worker or farmer and guide to perform well in order to keep pace with the development in the educational and extension process, especially in light of a terrible technological movement, in terms of change and in terms of speed That change, which requires the worker to cope with and keep pace with this mobility, all this made efficiency one of the basic factors that society cares about in the first place. [8]. States that aptitude is like the ability of any individual to have various functions, that is, that the capacity of the individual consists of two factors, the first being the intellectual ability factor, and the second being the physical capacity, the intellectual capacity is the ability that relates to the implementation of mental activities, and the physical ability is the necessary ability, To carry out activities that require stamina, strength, and skill [9]. Described that competence is a group of actions that are based on intelligent thinking and filled with the nature of responsibility, and a person must possess it as a condition to promise that he can carry out jobs in specific professions, and the nature of responsibility must appear as a correct procedure given from a science and technology perspective And ethics. [10]. Sees that the efficiency of organizations uses efficiency as a criterion for economic performance. Efficiency is an honest representation of the procedural performance related to the economic nature of organizations, and then it can be measured by the extent of the administrative ability to optimally use the available resources, whether human or material since the organization is A dynamic interactive network of parts that integrate to achieve the overall goals of this organization. The efficiency of the organization, in general, is expressed by the three competencies, which are cognitive efficiency, performance efficiency, and production efficiency [11]. Believe that human resources represented by workers are among the most important organizational resources in the success of organizations and that promoting successful strategies are the skills, capabilities, competencies, and experiences of workers, which in turn lead to raising the efficiency of workers [12]. States that competence does not contain knowledge, skills, and attitudes only, but the application of those knowledge, skills, and attitudes needed in the work is an important and indispensable thing because it is what leads to the organization achieving its goals. It is worth mentioning [13]. The efficiency and effectiveness ofAncyra go hand in hand despite the existence of a clear difference between Efficiency is the outcome of the performance components of the overall organization, including the addition of technical and functional and administrative activities of the interaction and affect the internal and external, as well as variants linked to the extent of achieving the organization's objectives, As for efficiency, it refers to the use of the human and productive resources available to the organization (the extent of rational use of these resources), meaning that it is related to the cost component, and the relationship between inputs and outputs [14]. Speaks that adequacy is a set of knowledge, skills, and experiences that translate into actions, actions, or activities in the field of work, or during the performance of a job, in a specific and observable and measurable framework, to meet the challenges of the imposed work. Or, out of critical practical situations within the framework of the profession entrusted to him, and this is what happens in the work of the agricultural extension organization. [15]. affirmed that efficiency is the behavior that we look at in terms of the perspective IOP Conf. Series: Earth and Environmental Science 923 (2021) 012069 IOP Publishing doi:10.1088/1755-1315/923/1/012069 3 inspired by the need to define and clarify the objectives through the resulting behavior, i.e. efficiency -the job, which is what we need in the agricultural extension work in case we want to give efficiency its behavioral meaning We must demonstrate the efficiency by returning it to the social and technical goal, and what allows us to define it through its function in the fieldwork of the agricultural guide, as the collective organizational skills in the agricultural extension organization represent the basis for the organization in providing extension services to farmers, Another very important role is the technical competencies of agricultural extension workers, which is training farmers in sound agricultural practices [16]. It is important to identify the skills and competencies of workers and employees in order to compare them with requirements that help reach the strategic objectives of the organization, as efficiency is not classified as having a strategic nature except in the case of its contribution to making the extension organization adapt to its environment and depends on the degree of reliability between the environment And its surroundings and trying to influence it and its success and achieving its goals [17]. The importance of this study is in building a measure of the efficiency of organizations' management in the context of agricultural extension work in order to measure levels of competence among workers in agricultural extension organizations and to identify their strengths and weaknesses, as the availability of such information is vital in developing their capabilities and developing their performance, in addition to that this will help Also in meeting the need for future studies that require knowledge or source of the concept of competency in similar contexts. Based on the above, this study seeks to answer the following question: What is the level of efficiency of management in agricultural extension organizations in the Republic of Iraq?

2.The Objectives of The Study
The purpose of the study was to identify the administrative efficiency of the agricultural extension organization based on the opinions of agricultural extension workers in the southern region of Iraq. The objectives of this study:  Describe the independent variables of the agricultural extension agents in the southern  Determine the level of Efficiency of the Agricultural Extension Organization Management in the Southern of Iraq  Determine the level of efficiency of the agricultural extension organization management According to the opinions of the respondents in each of the following areas:  The job description for the respondents in the agricultural extension organization  The agricultural extension work system  The respondents' daily attendance  The resources and facilities for respondents to carry out agricultural extension activities  The work required to be accomplished by the respondents in the agricultural extension organization  Identify the level of respondents' satisfaction with the efficiency of the agricultural extension organization management in the southern of Iraq.

Methods Of The Research
The descriptive approach was used in the current study because this approach provides a survey work that can be used to give encouraging results that point to facts in reality [18]. The data were collected by using the questionnaire tool in the personal interview after it was presented to a group of specialized arbitrators, as well as a process to verify its reliability and validity. The questionnaire consisted of two parts, the first section included: One of them is a set of questions that deal with the independent characteristics of the extension workers under consideration, The second included a set of questions that dealt with the level of efficiency of the agricultural extension organization management. A preliminary examination of the form (pre-testing) was conducted on 20 agricultural extension agents from outside the research sample to ensure its validity and to determine the extent of the respondents' understanding of all its items, and after ensuring the validity and accuracy of the form, field data were collected during June and July of 2020. Checking the stability of the tool using the Cronbach's alpha equation, it was 0.97 and 0.88 for the pre-test questionnaire respectively, and this result indicates that the search tool has stability that meets the research purposes.

The Population of the research
This research was conducted in the governorates of southern Iraq, which numbered three provinces, namely (Maysan, Dhi_ Qar, and Basra), as these governorates are characterized by relative security stability and the practice of various agricultural activities, as well as the presence of agricultural extension and training centers, as well as extension farms. A total of 122 IOP Conf. Series: Earth and Environmental Science 923 (2021) 012069 IOP Publishing doi:10.1088/1755-1315/923/1/012069 4 agricultural extension agents were chosen by the random sampling method by 40, 40, 42 agricultural extension agents from the research community in the mentioned governorates respectively. The questionnaire was used in this research. Because the questionnaire is considered one of the successful research tools if it is used appropriately in proportion to achieving the research objectives after presenting it to specialists to see its validity [19]. The questionnaire form included two parts: the first dealt with the personal variables, and the second part the dependent variable, which is the efficiency of the organization through its workers, which included six areas: job description for workers in the agricultural extension organization, the agricultural extension work system, the presence of workers in their departments, and the resources and facilities for the establishment of workers. With the agricultural extension activities, the volume of work required to be accomplished by the extension workers in the agricultural extension organization, and the satisfaction of the workers with the extension work in the organization, The paragraphs for each domain were 4, 6, 4, 6, 5 and 11 respectively, and the number of paragraphs became 36 paragraphs. The measure of competency of the extension organization was through the responses of agricultural extension agents. The levels to measure the efficiency of the guiding organization (very weak, weak, average, good, and very good), and the weights of grades were given to measure the efficiency (1, 2, 3, 4, 5) respectively, And to determine the overall degree of the efficiency of the agricultural extension organization, the raw grades of the studied fields were converted to a standard degree, and they were subtracted from the arithmetic average and divided by the standard deviation, then the standard scores were collected for each of the research paragraphs and divided among those areas in order to come out with the overall average degree of the organization's extension efficiency. By using the SPSS statistical program, by calculating the range for each field and the paragraphs contained in the scale.

The independent variables
The first objective was to describe the independent variables of the extension agents. Included(age, level of education, years of experience, specialization, living location, and participation in training courses). Table 1 gives to the distribution independent variables of extension agents. The high percentage to the respondents were (43.4%). With the ages of 45 years. The high percentage was (59.1%) percent with the ( bachelor degree). The high percentage (50%) with the second category of the years of experience. The high percentage (58%)with the third category plant sciences. The high percentage ( 66.4%) with the second category rural areas. The high percentage (53.5%) with third category the participated in 6-11 training courses.  weakness of financial support. Furthermore, there is a lack in the number of agents and the training programs about the agricultural extension organization management.  Table (3) illustrates that the overall mean of the level of agents' confidence in conducting activities in organic agriculture was (4.46) scores. The mean of extension workers' attendance at daily work was(5.28)and the mean of agents' satisfaction about the extension work was (4.47). However; the two lowest means were resources and facilities (M= 3.80) and job description (M = 4.15).

The job description for the respondents in the agricultural extension organization
Frequencies of the 4 job description statements are presented in Table 4. The highest frequency of each statement that participants strongly agreed with were "Job description components "(17.2%),"A written job description document" (16.4%), "Tasks and duties of the extension agents" (14.75%), and"The existence of a job description for the extension agents"(13.9%).

The agricultural extension work system
The frequencies of responses for each of the 3 statements for agriculture extension system are presented in Table 5. The top three rated statements respondents strongly agreed with were "Agricultural extension programs" (25.4), "The general strategy of the Ministry of Agriculture" (24.6), and "Agricultural extension message" (22.9). It can be concluded from Table 5 that the efficiency of agricultural extension work is medium.

The respondents' daily attendance
The results of this study showed that the distribution of respondents in employees' daily attendance was very good (57.4%) in the first statement, 53.3% in the second statement, 51.6% in the third statement, 27.0% in the fourth statement, and 28.7% in the fifth statement as shown in Table (6).The finding in this table illustrated that the level of competency of agricultural extension agents in the daily attendance is high.  Table 7 revealed that the top three rated statements respondents strongly agreed with were "Budget of agricultural extension activities"(25.4%), "Availability of hearing and visual aids"(18%), and "All kinds of transportation" (18%).It can be concluded from Table 7 that the resources and facilities for respondents to carry out agricultural extension activities was moderate and tended to be weak.  Table 8 illustrated that the top three rated statements respondents strongly agreed with were "The cultivated area supervised by the agricultural extension agent" (34.4%), "The number of work hours required by agricultural extension work" (33.6%), and "The number of work hours required by agricultural extension work"(33.6%).It is concluded from Table 8 that work required to be accomplished by the extension agents in the agricultural extension organization is moderate.   Table 9 revealed that the top four rated statements respondents strongly agreed with were "Job stability" (26.2%), "Ease of communication with other agricultural extension agents" (26.2%), "Relationships with extension supervisors" (26.2%), and "Ease of communication with extension supervisors".It is concluded from Table 9 that the level of satisfaction of the agricultural extension workers with the extension work immoderate.

Conclusions
The results of the research concluded that the level of efficiency of the agricultural extension organization management according to the responses of the agricultural extension workers in the governorates of southern Iraq was medium and tends to weaken. The research recommends developing laws and regulations governing extension work according to written and officially legislated documents by the relevant authorities in the Ministry of Agriculture and increasing interest in the agricultural guide by providing appropriate training as well as financial resources through which he can facilitate the implementation of extension activities.