Delivery of Agricultural Extension Services to Farmers in Developing Countries

This article discusses re-thinking the way agricultural technology is delivered to farmers. The author considers two approaches and seven strategies, including the relationship of public and private extension services and the expanded potential of information and communication technology (ICT) to enhance service delivery.


The first approach is the "Farmer-Group Approach" suggested as a replacement for one-to-one extension-farmer visits, which are described as too costly. Advantages of groups include: farmer-to-farmer contact; the extension agent as a catalyst (to mobilise farmers to experiment on an identified need/solution, recognise local innovations, and help to assess and encourage them); and sustainability once a network is set up to pass on knowledge.


The second approach is the "Farmer Field School (FFS) Approach", described as is a participatory method of technology development and dissemination, based on adult learning principles and experimental learning. As stated here, "The operation of the extension delivery approach is that developmental organizations partner with extension personnel to ...form farmer groups based on particular topics.... This provides an opportunity for each participant to teach others what they have learned. At the end of the FFS cycle, certain farmers are chosen by the group to be farmer facilitators. They can then lead their own farmer field school the following season....The FFS methods have transformed farmers from recipients of information to generators and manipulators of local data....One important issue in FFS is that of sustainability without outside funding."


Strategies included in the document are the following:

1) Provide legal and policy framework - Agricultural extension in developing countries requires a legal and policy framework for providing service, which should include: the structure for extension in the country; an indication of the sources, levels, and methods of funding; identification of sources and types of programme; determination of functions that constitute extension; provision of the quality of manpower needed; and identification of which agencies can participate and how.

2) Link extension services to market opportunities.

3) Recognise indigenous knowledge - A country’s knowledge base can be developed and fostered to both improve its competitive position and to contribute to human and sustainable development goals. Special emphasis could be placed on developing and disseminating local content, improving the relevance of the information to local development, as well as capturing and auditing all relevant local resources.

4) Use "targeting" and gender sensitivity - "Targeting" is described here as the understanding of who the farmers are in terms of their capabilities (including gender, resources, markets, culture, etc.) and ensuring that technologies that are relevant to each farmer’s capability are available. This compels the extension service provider and the research to properly examine the match between the audience and the technology.

5) Network and enhance the capabilities of extension service providers - As stated here, for extension to succeed, it must enhance its linkages and networks with research, farmers, and extension providers (public and private - through national and regional associations of extension service providers).

4) Increase use of ICT in extension - According to the author: "The promise of ICT in agricultural extension is that they can energize the collection, processing and transmission of data, resulting in faster extension of quality information to more farmers in a bottom-up and interactive channel of communication.... Also, increasing the use of ICTs in agricultural extension will narrow the gender disparities in terms of access to agricultural information. The internet could be used to enable farmers to become part of the information flow process and even to instigate the process of information flow rather than waiting for the information to be presented to them via radio, TV, newspapers, newsletters, bulletins, or other ICTs."

5) Increase use of private extension service providers - As stated here: "Increased involvement of the private sector... broadens the focus of extension personnel and makes extension services more responsive to client needs and changing economic and social conditions."

The author concludes that new methodologies for disseminating scientific research need to be incorporated in the learning paradigm now being used in agricultural extension, along with integrated approaches that are demand-driven and increase the interactive participation of local people at all levels of decision. "These methods require that the roles and responsibilities of researchers, extensionists, and local people be re-defined and shared. However, it is imperative that individual countries make situational analyses of the social, political, technical, economic and natural conditions prevalent in their areas before adapting any method, approach, or strategy."