2026 Vol-6 Issue-2 | HOST COMMUNITIES' ASSESSMENT OF THE UNIVERSITY OF ABUJA AGRICULTURAL EXTENSION AND RURAL SERVICES IN GWAGWALADAAREA COUNCIL, FCT, NIGERIA

Nigerian universities are increasingly expected to deliver agricultural extension services to their host communities, yet there is limited empirical evidence on how such communities perceive and benefit from university-based extension models, particularly the University of Abuja's Research-Extension-Students-Farmers Input Linkage (RESFIL) programme. This study assessed host communities' perceptions of the University of Abuja's agricultural extension and rural services in Gwagwalada Area Council, Federal Capital Territory. Adopting a descriptive crosssectional survey design, the study selected 300 smallholder farmers from ten host communities through a multistage sampling procedure combining purposive, cluster and simple random techniques, and analysed the data using descriptive statistics, one-way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA), exploratory factor analysis (EFA), and the Positive Impact Index (PII). Extension services significantly improved agricultural development and farmers' wellbeing (F = 27.8, p < 0.01), with the greatest effect recorded for food production, productivity and income (mean = 4.3) and the lowest for agricultural credit availability (mean = 3.5). Exploratory factor analysis (KMO = 0.85; Bartlett's χ² = 550.25, df = 45, p < 0.01) extracted three components jointly explaining 68.9% of the total variance, namely high-quality advisory services, community principles, and technology facilitation. The most valued benefit was higher patronage (PII = 83.33%), while credit access (PII = 53.33%) ranked lowest. University-based extension services have t h e r e f o r e m e a s u r a b l y e n h a n c e d smallholder farmers' productivity, knowledge and market participation in Gwagwalada, but persistent constraints in credit and market access require deliberate institutional partnership-building to maximise their impact on host-community livelihoods.