It is logical that policy maker first be convinced of
the key role extension in national development before giving serious through to
reforming and modernizing the present national agricultural extension services.
This is important because unfortunately a somewhat unhealthy perception of
extension prevails, caused by a weak extension lobby inmost developing
countries, faulty initial organizational set –up an inherent lack of trust in
extension by most of the research organizations, and traditionally poor career
development conditions in the profession of extension.
Since the start of structural adjustment programmes in
developing countries many years ago, extension services have been a prime
target of downsizing. In some cases, the donors concerned have guided the
governments in this direction, while in other cases strong lobbies in certain
agricultural discipline –notably agricultural research and economy have challenged the usefulness
of extension.
Extension work is a very difficult l task in less
developed countries. It is not carried
out from air-conditioned offices or laboratories by formally dressed persons,
but mostly in the field under server whether and logistic conditions with
minimum facilities. The extension mission of interacting with mostly
illiterate and poor rural people with
the aim of changing their behaviour positively is indeed a formidable
task when compared to working with plants and animals in the comfort of research stations.
This is indeed a misfortune for the developing
countries. Extension has been and still is treated as an inferior subject by
most agricultural researchers, in spite of evidence that if extension is weak,
some otherwise excellent technologies never reach the farmers. During 1960s,
extension played a significant role in ringing about the green revolution
through the strategic introduction and
promotion of high yielding wheat and rice varieties and the use of farm inputs
as recommended by researchers.
The common belief among researchers that, if they
develop a good technology the farmers
will automatically adopt it therefore, there is no need for extension is not sound. If this were true, hundreds of good
technologies developed by researchers, as pointed out in a major international conference held in Addis Ababa
in 1995, in which Sasakawa foundation was also involved, would not be sitting
on shelves to the dismay of good scientists.
The good technologies, in order to be considered by the farmers for
possible adoption, must first travel the distance between relevant research
institutes and the farmers fields. Then
they should be introduced to the farmers in non-technical language and the
advantages of the technology over traditional practices must be demonstrated in
a convincing manner, such as through field demonstration. Next, the necessary
ingredients for trying the new technology, such as cost and any risk factors
will have to be explained. Later, various adult education methods and
participatory decision – making approaches need to be followed in order to
encourage discussion on the information provided on the new technology in order
to assess both positive and negative issues. Assuming that some progressive
farmers are willing to try the new technology, arrangements will have to be
made for other farmers to benefit from this limited “sample adoption”
opportunity the regular monitoring of the trail of the technology, including
discussion with the progressive farmers, will be required for any t4rouble
shooting and eventually to assess the overall performance of the new technology
under in situ field conditions. Good or
bad results and possible reasons for them must be conveyed to the relevant researchers
who recommended the particular technology. If the benefits outweigh the
problems, the technology will have a better chance of being adopted by other farmers otherwise,
it will have to be categorized as an inappropriate technology and dropped from
the list of extension recommendations.
In the past, agricultural researcher institutes in a
number of developing countries created small extension units as a part of their organizational
structure for publicizing their
technologies mostly through publications.
While the publications were a source of satisfaction for the researchers, such
publicity rarely went beyond the confines of the institutes. Such units were
later disbanded. Several research researcher outreach projects were also tried,
within the framework of which research trails were conducted in farmers’
fields. This approach gave more positive results, but only I those places where
both extension workers and farmers were actively involved in the entire
process. Still, the practice was no substitute for available extension
services.
Countries like the united states of
America, Canada, Australia and Denmark, which have very advanced agriculture,
have always enjoyed strong extension services first public, and now public
and/or private. Their extension services may look very different from those of
developing countries, but so are their farms (mostly commercial) and the number
of farmers (mostly a low percentage of country’s population). None of these
very developed countries has ever considered the discipline of extension as
inferior to other agricultural disciplines at the time of resource allocation
Major donors like the world bank have observed an
almost constant decline in resource allocation to agriculture sector during the
past decade, but lately the trend has visibly reveres. There are many reasons
for this, but the major one is the resolve of rich countries to fight hunger
and poverty in less developed countries, as these two menaces have led to a variety of serious problems
with far- reaching effects. The eradication of extreme poverty and hunger,
promotion of gender equity and the empowerment a of women, combating HIV/AIDS,
Malaria and other diseases, and ensuring environmental
a sustainability, are among the declared United Nations Millennium Development
Goals, which are closely related to the extension function. In addition global
emphasis continues on the need for sustainable rural and agricultural
development. These facts have not only renewed interest in the potential power
of extension, but have also triggered a worldwide movement for reforming and
modernizing the traditional extension systems to enable them to play the
anticipated role successfully. The new extension services have to be
knowledgeable, will equipped in terms of resources, armed with a broad
technical mandate beyond technology transfer, and truly efficient irrespective
of its modality ie whether singular or pluralistic, public or private, or a
mixture of the two. Any investment made in reforming and modernizing extension
is bound to return to the country in both the short and long term. On the other
hand, the absence of an effective extension service in any developing country
at this crucial stage of global development will in all probability leave its
farmers significantly uneducated, its agriculture sector underdeveloped and its
rural life impoverished.