THE ROLE OF AGRICULTURAL EXTENSION IN PROMOTING THE PRODUCTION AND MARKETING OF MEDICINAL AND AROMATIC PLANTS IN THE NEW VALLEY GOVERNORATE

This research aimed to identify the opinion of the respondents in agricultural extension role in the field of production and marketing of medicinal and aromatic plants in researching, their knowledge, and applying the recommendations. For this research, conducted in New Valley Governorate, a random sample of 99 respondents (representing 7% of total 1410 farmers) was selected. The field data was collected by personal interview through a questionnaire form during February and March 2022. The presentation of results and data analysis used the tabular presentation by frequency, percentages, arithmetic mean, standard deviation, mean score, simple correlation coefficient, Spearman's rank correlation coefficient, and the correlational and multiple graded ascending regression analysis model.
Key findings:
1-That 31.3% of the respondents fall into the low category of the role of agricultural extension in promoting the production and marketing of medicinal and aromatic plants in the research area.

About 36.4% of the respondents fall into the category of low level of knowledge of the studied recommendations in the field of production and marketing of medicinal and aromatic plants.

3-About 40.4% of the respondents fall into the category of low degree of application of the studied recommendations in the field of production and marketing of medicinal and aromatic plants.
4-. There is a significant correlation at the level of 0.01 between the degree expressing the opinion of the respondents about the role of agricultural extension in promoting the production and marketing of medicinal and aromatic plants among the independent variables studied, which are the number of years of learning, the number of family members, experience in the cultivation of medicinal and aromatic plants, and openness to the outside world , and the degree of formal social participation, and at the level of 0.05% for each of age, family employment, and the degree of openness to the outside world.

There are four independent variables that contribute about 43.0% of the total variation in the degree that expresses the opinion of the respondents about the extent to which agricultural extension plays its role in the field of production and marketing of the studied medicinal and aromatic plants.

6-There is a significant correlation at the level of 0.01 between the degree of the respondents' knowledge of the studied recommendations in the field of production and marketing of medicinal and aromatic plants in the research area and each of the following independent variables: the number of years of education, the number of family members, experience in the cultivation of medicinal and aromatic plants, and the degree of official social participation.

There are five independent variables that contribute about 59.4% of the total variance in the degree of knowledge of the respondents about the studied recommendations in the field of production and marketing of medicinal and aromatic plants.

8- There is a significant correlation at the level of 0.01 between the degree of application of the respondents to the studied recommendations in the field of production and marketing of medicinal and aromatic plants and each of the following independent variables: number of family members, and experience in growing medicinal and aromatic plants.

There are four independent variables that contribute about 48.9% of the total variance in the degree of farmers application of the optimal recommendations for the production and marketing of the studied medicinal and aromatic plants.
There is a significant correlation at the level of 0.01 between the total degree of the agricultural extension role in promoting the production and marketing of medicinal and aromatic plants and each of the following independent variables: number of years of education, number of family members, experience in cultivation of medicinal and aromatic plants, and the degree of official social participation.
There are five independent variables among the total independent variables that contribute about 65.8% of the total variation in the total degree of the role of agricultural extension in promoting the production and marketing of medicinal and aromatic plants.
Most production problems growers of medicinal and aromatic plants face are: the difficulty of obtaining seedlings and seeds of medicinal and aromatic plants from reliable sources with a rate of 91.9%. And that most marketing problems growers of medicinal and aromatic plants face are: the exploitation of merchants and the scarcity of marketing outlets by 89.9%.