3UNITED NATIONS INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT

A survey was carried out to access the operators ’ knowledge of operation and maintenance of farm machinery for sustainable agricultural mechanisation in Ebonyi S and field investigations were used to ascertain the operators ’ educational background, experience o operation and maintenance in the government and private agricultural organisation in th revealed that 44.6 % of the operator had both primary education and trade test; 26.9 % had primary education only. 19.3 % had trade test certificate only and 9.2 % had post respondents were licensed to operate machines. The mean age and year of experienced of the operators were 41.05 and 19.8 years respectively. The statutory result on the machines indicated that 64.9 % of the available machines were functional, 21.9 % were non-functio 50.4 to 79.8 % of the operators examined from both government and private agricultural organisations could competently handle preventive and corrective maintenances while 17 to 20 % had l and about 2 to 10 % had no knowledge of maintenance. Result showed that the machine failures encountered during operations were as a result of poor management, inadequate maintenance practices, obsoleteness, overloading, careless operations and poor storage of machine after use. therefore given to improve the operation and maintenance of machinery in the area