Technical Assistance and Rural Extension: the perception of satisfaction of the service provided to the associations assisted by a public project for rural development in the territory of the middle hills of paraibano

Abstract

This studyis based on a field research on the rural technical assistance and extension service (ATER) contracted by a public rural development project to meet the specific demands of associations that have productive projects agreed with the Government of Paraí­ba in the territory of the Middle East Sertão. In this way, the article intends to verify the perception of the leaderships / presidents of these associations about the satisfaction of this service of ATER that was contracted through public call. In addition, it seeks to carry out a survey of the socioeconomic profile of the leaders of the territory. The research was carried out in the rural associations of the municipalities of Salgadinho, Junco do Seridó, São Mamede, Santa Luzia, São José do Sabugi and Várzea. In the municipalities in question there are eleven production projects agreed with associations of farmers, women farmers and artisans who are in execution with the State Government through the project in question. The instruments for data collection started from existing semi-structured questionnaires that were adapted to meet the objectives of the study, one from the National Institute of Educational Studies and Research Aní­sio Teixeira (INEP) to outline the socioeconomic profile of the leaderships and the other one entitled Scale of attitudes towards the rural extension of Taveira (2005) through the alternatives of the Likert scale. The analysis presented the perception of the service by the leaders with satisfaction, bringing points that must be improved to better serve the beneficiary public and a comparison of existing studies on the actions developed by ATER's that provide public services to rural associations.