rganisations are a major force in determining the course of human life. Yet, only few people may recognise the extent to which organisations shape their behaviour. Organisations are made up of component parts -key among which is the human component. It is a given knowledge that the human element is the most vital to organisational effectiveness. Human beings mobilise and coordinate the other variables to achieve set objectives. For organisational objectives to be achieved therefore, the skills of the staff members need to be sharpened continually. This takes two major forms -training and development. Manpower development as a concept seems to be giving way to concepts such as human resource development, human capital development and human resource management in most literature. But scholars such as Sharma and Sadana (2007) and Ekpo (1989) use these concepts interchangeably. This work adopts same approach. Once an applicant is selected by an organisation as a member of its personnel, the next duty is to place him in the right job and provide him with the training and development facilities needed for him to fit the present and future career chalked out for such individual (Davar, 2006). Manpower development therefore is the continuous process of improving the skill content of staff members of an organisation which is a function of 'job change'. Effectiveness is the goal of this effort. Organisational effectiveness (OE) is one of the most extensively researched concepts since the early development of organisational theory (Rojas, 2000). Understandably, 'organisational effectiveness' answers the question, 'is the organisation achieving its targets or objectives'? At what cost are the objectives achieved is however not answered by effectiveness. Rather the question of efficiency which relates to judicious application of a unit of fund to produce a unit of goods and or services answers the cost question.

The main objective of this research therefore, is to investigate the perceived influence of manpower development on AKADEP's effectiveness and to assess how the extension activities of AKADEP has influenced farm output by small and medium scale farmers in Akwa Ibom State. This objective necessitates three major questions:

? Are the extension officers armed with modern techniques of farming for onward transmission to small and medium scale farmers? A close observation of the average human environment reveals that almost every man, establishment and government strives hard to achieve some objectives. For the individual, the objective may include learning, working, raising a family, building a house or even worship. Organisations may be interested in increasing production levels, training of personnel, and increasing returns on investment. A government may be seen providing infrastructure, building security networks, providing social security, making and enforcing laws, and facilitating food production among other such objectives. A notable strand in the phenomenon above is pursuing an agenda. No objective can be achieved without some form of organisation. The strategic role of the human variable in the achievement of objectives cannot be over stated.

Human beings set the agenda and organise the steps toward goal attainment. The American industrialist, Andrew Carnegie was once asked at the height of his business success, "If you were stripped of everything you possess except one thing, what would you choose to keep?" He replied back "my staff". This is the key that unlock the doors of an enterprise" (Sharma, and Sadana, 2007: 395). Out of the four factors of production -men, materials, machines, money -it is the men or human resources alone that is dynamic. Other factors are worthless without the involvement of this factor. As noted by Rensis (2004), all the activities of any enterprise are initiated and determined by the persons who make up that enterprise.

Manpower development therefore is the continuous process of impacting new information, skills, attitude and ideas to employees dictated by the requirement of job change (Modupe, 2008). This means that manpower development is the process of preparing the total quantitative and qualitative human asset in an organisation so that they can move with the organisation as they develop, change and grow. Conroy (2000) defines manpower development as a purposive effort intended to strengthen the organisation's capability to fulfil it's mission effectively and efficiently by encouraging and providing for the growth of its own human resources. Manpower development benefits the employee, the organisation and the society at large. It is worthy to note that skill acquisition enriches the quality of human knowledge, preparing employees to undertake specific task and employment functions which help to transform the environment. Learning organisations understand that any fund spent on capacity development has both immediate and long term impact on the organisation and the community it operates.

Rao, (1991) from his perspective declares that human resource development in the organisational context is a process by which the employees of an organisation are helped, in a continuous planned way, to acquire or sharpen capabilities required to perform various functions associated with their present or expected future roles, to develop their general capabilities as individuals and discover and exploit their own inner potentials for their own and organisational development purpose; and to develop organisational culture in which supervisor-subordinate relationships, team work, and collaboration among the sub-units are strong enough to contribute to the professional wellbeing, motivation and pride of employees. Manpower development as a concept has two components: training and development.

Training: Jones and Hill (2000), posits that training primarily focuses on teaching organisational members how to perform their current jobs and helping them acquire the knowledge and skills they need to be effective performers. It involves an expert working with learners to transfer to them certain areas of knowledge or skills to improve in their performance on the job. A simple definition of training is the process of learning the skills that is needed to do a job (Wehmeirer, and Ashby, 2004).

For example, the Akwa Ibom Agricultural Development Programme (AKADEP) Extension Officers who are taught latest method of fertile application for onward education of small scale farmers in their respective cells can be said to undergo training. Successful training needs to be systematic. That means, knowledge needs to be imparted and internalised progressively. The bottom line is that a specific skill is acquired in order to perform a given task well.

Development: According to Okotoni and Erero (2005:2) "development focuses on building the knowledge and skills of organisational members so that they will be prepared to take on new responsibilities and challenges". Development patterns to any learning activity which is directed toward organisation's future needs rather than present needs and which is concerned more with career growth than immediate performance. More often than not, staffs in higher cadre benefit from development programmes. That is perhaps the reason Olaniyan and Ojo (2008), refers to In all, managing the human component is the central and most important task in an organisation because all else depends on how well this is done. Part of being successful on the job is, understanding how things are done in individual organisations. This is achieved through orientation. Orientation involves welcome to the company, tour of facilities, introduction to colleagues, completion of paper work, review of the employment handbook and review of responsibilities. Each of these components need to be systematically effected to achieve organizational targets.

Organisational Effectiveness: Simply put, organisational effectiveness represents the outcome of organisational activities while performance measurement consists of an assessment tool to measure effectiveness (Jean-François, 2006). According to Katz and Kahn quoted in Oyedapo, Akinlabi and Sufian (2012: 123), "organisational effectiveness is a totality of organisation goodness, a sum of such elements as production, cost performance, turnover, quality of output, profitability, efficiency and the like. It can also be seen as the ability of an organisation to achieve its objectives and meet the needs of its various stakeholders". In this study, organisational effectiveness relates to the success by AKADEP extension officers to transfer acquired skills to small scale farmers who in turn should apply it to increase farm yield and guarantee food sufficiency in Akwa Ibom State.

Organisational effectiveness have models such as achievement of goals (goal model); resources and processes necessary to attain those goals ( Here is a line maker graph showing the relationship between training in AKADEP and crop production derived from summaries of table 1.1. The line maker graph above clearly suggests that training of extension officers in AKADEP is linearly related to food production in Akwa Ibom State. As variables such as training and visit system, input supply, and market intelligence improves, production level tends to appreciate equally.

The relevant theory to this research is 'training learning theory' by Donald Kirkpatrick. The theory assumes a four-step training and evaluation for human resource development: The steps are:

? Reaction -how learners react to the learning process ? Learning -the extent to which the learners gain knowledge and skills ? Behaviour (performance) -capability to perform the learned skills while on the job ? Results -includes such items as effectiveness, i.e.

what impact has the training achieved? It should be remembered that new skills learned in a training programme, need to be environment focused. For example, an extension worker in Borno State, Nigeria may require different skills for imparting knowledge there that may not hold for an extension worker in the Green Fields of Albany, Australia. Also, managers and/ or supervisors are enjoined to ensure that newly returned trainees perform their newly acquired skills. But this cannot work effectively if the supervisor is naive to what the training objectives were. What is more, facilities for the utilisation of the new skills must also be available. At the level of extension agents, demonstration farm, stem cuttings, fish fingerlings, seeds, fertiliser, pesticides, herbicides, seedlings, chicks etc may be all that are needed to showcase new skills to farmers. True, this may cost organisations money. But that would be expected by a Training Learning Organisation. Measuring results that affect an organisation is often considerably more painstaking. Thus it is conducted less frequently, although it yields the most valuable information. Here, emphasis is on the quality and quantity of farm produce in Akwa Ibom State. How does the training received by AKADEP extension officers impact on food production level in Akwa Ibom State? Is the state self-sufficient or is it import dependent? Clark, (2008) reasons that training learning theory's insistence on the application of knowledge acquired during training and evaluation of its impact on organisational objectives is excellent.

IV.

The method employed in this research is descriptive survey design. Descriptive survey as noted by Kothari (2011) is concerned with describing, recording, analyzing and interpreting conditions that either exist or existed. The techniques allowed the researchers to describe how manpower development in AKADEP impacts on small and medium scale farmers in Akwa Ibom State. In addition, the study also described common characteristics among the sample population of the research. The population of the study comprised of the entire 747 staff of AKADEP. Taro Yamane's formula was used to derive the sample size for the study which stood at 261. For this study, simple random sampling technique was used to draw respondents from the eight sub-programmes of AKADEP.

A structured questionnaire adapted by the researchers was used for the collection of the required information from respondents. The questionnaire was divided into two sections. Section A items drew demographic information from all respondents, section B addressed the subjects of interest. Cronbach Alpha reliability test was used to determine the internal consistency of the instrument and a reliability index of 0.71 and 0.73 on average were obtained for the sections. This being within the range recommended by Cronbach (Nunnally and Bernstein 1994). The study's sample stood at 351. Of this number, 237 (67.52%) questionnaires were valid for purpose of analysis. Likeness of off-the programme training because of higher allowance Likelihood of farmers to adopt suggestions given by extension officers Tendency of farmers to share knowledge gained Agreement that the organisation is grading feeder roads for evacuation of farm produce Agreement that farm inputs are readily distributed to farmers in the study area Agreement that Small Plot Adoption Technique (SPAT) impacts more than oral teachings Agreement with the statement that regular visit system increases farm yield Agreement with the statement that yield is decreasing in the study area ongoing visits Agreement with the statement that speaking a farmer's mother tongue boost reception of extension officers Agreement that mobility influences respondent's output and thus organisational objectives Feeling that it pays to source food externally than to farm in the study area Feeling that allowing staff to pursue higher education slow down achievement of objectives Likeness of the work because it gives more time to run personal affairs than those working in the office Perception that the organisation is adequately staffed Availability of facilities to perform task for which respondents are trained Supervisor's interest to ensure that acquired skills are utilised immediately Happiness of respondents toward their contributions to the good of the organisation Satisfaction of respondents with their work Tendency to quit job if a little more money is offered elsewhere Tendency to work harder if salaries are paid as at when due Recommendation of respondent's close friends to join the organisation Analysis of data presented in table 1.4 shows that 237 respondents participated in the survey. tell if there is a statistical significant correlation between variables of interest. Since the analysis utilises 0.01 (system determined) confidence level, value of T less than the confidence level (T < 0.01) means rejecting the null hypothesis (H 0 ), while (T> 0.01) means accepting the null hypothesis. In this analysis, since r = .298 (T = .000 < 0.01) which indicate a strong positive relationship, H 0 is rejected and H 1 is accepted at 0.01 level of significance at 235 df (N-2 or 235 -2 = 235 df).

Therefore, there is a strong positive relationship between manpower development and organisational effectiveness in AKADEP. Manpower development in AKADEP and the organisation's effectiveness positively influences each other. When one increases the other tends to increase. The drive by the government in Akwa Ibom State to ensure sufficient food production all year round to feed the ever expanding mouth is yielding fruits. The study demonstrated that increased attention must be given to training and retraining of AKADEP extension agents since it has the potential of influencing AKADEP's effectiveness and thus food production in Akwa Ibom State. This recent finding is supported by Okereke and Igboke (2011) who found out that organisations that enjoy regular manpower development programmes are more effective than those with spaced or sporadic training exercises. Also, in support of this recent finding, Dlamini, S., Rugambisa, J., Masuku, M. and Belete, A. (2010) found out that policies designed to educate agricultural extension workers could have a great impact in increasing the level of technical efficiency and hence the increase in sugarcane productivity. Training and development helps to ensure that organisation members possess the knowledge and skills they need to perform their jobs effectively, take on new responsibilities, and adapt to changing conditions (Jones, and Pearson's r crossing between adoption of suggestions by extension officers by farmers and farm yield is .378**. Since the analysis utilises 0.01 (SPSS determined) level of significance, value of T (.000) less than the level of significance (0.01) means rejecting H0 and vice versa. In this analysis, r = .378** and T value = .000 which is higher than 0.01(.000 < 0.01) means rejection H 0 and accepting H 1 at 0.01 level of significance at 235 df (N-2 or 237 -2 = 35df).

Therefore, there is a positive relationship between adoption of suggestions by extension officers by farmers and farm yield in Akwa Ibom State of Nigeria. This finding is consistent with earlier finding by Elendu, N. (2010) on the strategies for food security in Nigeria. The work reasons that adoption of modern farming best practice by farmers has the potential of altering the farm yield equation in Nigeria and that a well-coordinated extension service programme is vital in this regard. Paarlberg (2002), agrees with this finding on the strategies of shoring-up enough food for mankind. Techniques like guided fertilizer injection and trickle drip irrigation have the potential of rapidly increasing yield per hectare and return on investment. Analysis of data presented in table 1.8 shows that 237 respondents participated in the survey. Pearson's r crossing between off-the-job training and organisational effectiveness on SPSS 19.0 furnishes the following output. The Pearson's r statistics for between off-the-job training and organisational effectiveness is .474**. Our T value (significance 2 tailed) tell if there is a statistical significant correlation between variables of interest. Since the analysis utilises 0.01 (system determined) confidence level, value of T less than the confidence level (T < 0.01) means rejecting the null hypothesis (H0 ), while (T> 0.01) means accepting the null hypothesis. In this analysis, since r = .474** (T = .000 < 0.01) which indicate a strong positive relationship, H 0 is rejected and H 1 is accepted at 0.01 level of significance at 235 df (N-2 or 237 -2 = 235 df).

Therefore, there is a strong positive relationship between off-the-job training and organisational effectiveness.

Respondent's favour of in-house training as opposed to off-the-programme training though surprising is a testament that if AKADEP cannot show anything else, the forth-night training is a sustained legacy of the organisation. Every forth-night meeting affords extension officers the opportunity to share successes and/or challenges they experience in the field with experts drawn from the programme and other agricultural research establishments. This latest finding is corroborated by Mackin and Harrington (2006) who observes that one prime benefit of in-house training is quick turnaround between training request and delivery of result. In the same vein Ojohwoh (2011) insist that inservice training utilises experts and professionals within an organisation and reduces cost of training outside the organisation.

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The present study observes that manpower development influences AKADEP's effectiveness positively. Learning organisations optimises continuous training of staff to ensure attainment of its objectives. Regular improvement of skill content of staff is equally a motivation which benefits both the staff and organisation in the final analysis. In the present study, it is worthy to note that AKADEP's objective is optimised when extension officers effectively impart acquired skills to small and medium scale farmers, and the farmers adopt same to improve yield in the study area. Effectiveness of AKADEP is a network of activities which begins with the organisation (organisation of training and provision of facilities for transfer of skills) through the extension officers (transfer of acquired knowledge to small and medium scale farmers) to the farmers (utilisation of knowledge by adopting improved farming techniques to increase farm yield). This research equally found out that internally arranged manpower programmes impact more on AKADEP extension officers and thus the small-scale farmers who are the centre-piece of food production in Akwa Ibom State. Access to farm inputs for onward distribution to farmers affects both extension officer's availability and enthusiasm for his/her work.

On the strength of this study's findings, the following recommendations are made:

Manpower development in AKADEP can only result in increased food production if training and visit system operates optimally to bridge the missed cycle i.e., the gap in knowledge between agriculture research edge and small-scale farmers. To that end, AKADEP is encouraged to fully aid extension agents on their regular visits to farmers through provision of mobility and/ or transport allowance. Also, each Clan should provide extension officers a plot of land and an accommodation in that facility for him to demonstrate model farming, so that the small-holder farmers can observe. A Resident Extension Officer will readily provide needed assistance for the farming community. The cumulative positive impact of a resident extension officer can be imagined.

The forth-night training in AKADEP can be strengthened by dividing the extension officers in the zones into two batches. Presently, all extension agents are lumped together during classes. A class of over 70 persons does not allow for concentration. Having two batches of about 35 trainees each allows for focused attention. Individual agents can be seen and felt by both the class and instructors.