FARMERS' OPINIONS REGARDING AGRICULTURAL EXHIBITIONS AS AN EXTENSION EDUCATION METHOD ACQUAINTING THEM WITH MODERN AGRICULTURAL TECHNIQUES. "A CASE STUDY ON THEW SAHARA AGRICULTURAL EXHIBITION" CAIRO, A.R.E

The main objectives of this research are as follows: • Identifying the farmers' opinions towards the agricultural exhibitions as an extension education method acquainting them with modern tech-niques and innovations in agriculture. • Pointing out the Information sources through which farmers could know the exact date and location of the exhibition. • High-lightening the main ways of making use of the exhibitions as well as farmers' visit motivations. • The most influential changes affecting agricultural exhibitions as well as farmers' suggestions to develop them. This research was conducted on a selection of 247 visitors of 14th Sahara Agricultural Exhibition. The following characteristics were highly put into consideration at the selection process: • Visitors should be farmers who are landowners. • They also may be farm or agricultural plant labors assigned to agricul-tural productive activities. Data was collected, starting from 9/9/2001 till the end of the exhibition on 12/9/2001, through a developed questioner, filled out in an interview with each respondent The data was analyzed statistically by using the frequencies, percentage, arithmetic mean, and Chi-Square. The main findings and the extracted conclusions were as follows: • Over (60.79%) approved of agricultural exhibitions as an extension ed‌ucation, method illustrating the modern techniques and innovation in agriculture. • A significant effective relationship between the educational status var-iable and the multiplicity of agricultural activities variable on one hand and the farmers' opinion regarding Agricultural Exhibitions as an Exten-sion education method on the other hand, whereas the same relation-ship was not significant as shown in terms of the other independent studied variables. • Daily newspapers were the main source through which farmers knew about the date and location of the exhibition. • The main motivations behind visiting the exhibition were as follows: