Chapter 2

Alternative Extension Approaches

1
 Alternative Approaches to Organizing
Extension
• neither "good" nor "bad."

• extension services must be judged against their proper

goals.

• universal yardstick = service function to the rural

communities.

– Extension which is not in touch with and does not

significantly contribute to improving the life situation of its
clientele has lost its trust. 2
 Alternative Approaches … (2)
• actions of individuals, groups, and organizations
• reflect interests of stakeholders
• differ according to specific life situations, power
positions, and development philosophies
• organizational structure
• choice of clientele
• operational design
• methods used
• contribution
3
 Alternative Approaches … (3)
• variety of forms suggest a similar variety of goals

– technology transfer Vs human resource development

 formal or vocational education

 literacy programs, knowledge

 managerial skills, critical competence

4
 Alternative Approaches … (4)
 Public Vs private
 Government Vs non-government
 Top-down (bureaucratic) Vs bottom-up
(participatory)
 Profit Vs nonprofit
 Free Vs cost-recovery
 General Vs sector-specific
 Multipurpose Vs single purpose
 Technology driven Vs need oriented
5
 Eight Main Approaches
1. The general agricultural extension approach
2. The commodity specialized approach
3. The training and visit (T&V) approach
4. The participatory agricultural extension
approach
5. The project approach
6. The farming systems development approach
7. The cost-sharing approach
8. The educational institution approach
6
 How Success is Measured in Each Approach
1. The general agricultural extension approach:
rate of take-up of the recommendations,
increases in national production
2. The commodity specialized approach: total
production of the particular crop
3. The training and visit approach: production
increases of the particular crops covered by the
programme
4. The participatory agricultural extension
approach: numbers of farmers actively
participating and benefiting
7
 How Success is Measured … (2)
5. The project approach: short-run change
6. The farming systems development approach: extent
to which farming people adopt the technologies
developed by the programme and continue using
them over time
7. The cost sharing approach: farm people’s willingness
and ability to share some of the cost, either
individually or through their local government units
8. The educational institution approach: farming
people’s attendance at and participation in the
school’s agricultural extension activities
8
1. General/Ministry-Based Extension
• seemed an ideal solution for many African and Asian
governments (shortly before/after independence)
• original colonial model combined research and
extension within the same organization
• important aspects of small-holder agriculture - plant
production, animal husbandry; established respective
sections
• ministerial hierarchy followed the country's territorial
subdivision allowed the systematic expansion of the
system "down" to the village
• thus, clientele included in principle all persons engaged
in agriculture
9
Criticisms: Ministry-Based Approach
• contradictory goals
– serving farmers and the urban population, securing
subsistence production and promoting cash crops for export
– priorities are pro urban in terms of price policy, favoring
innovative individuals within the modem sector, neglecting
poorer strata, and forgetting about women farmers
• the hierarchical and highly bureaucratic way in which
the services are organized hampers a full realization of
their potential
• priority setting for research is rarely based on field
evaluations because the system does not foster critical
upward communication
10
 Criticisms: Ministry-Based … (2)
• non-educational /activities not related to the extension
function performed by the extension personnel
• unable to satisfy majority of its potential clientele
– economic, socio-psychological, and technical reasons
• quantitative increases in personnel
– not produced manageable client-to-agent ratios in remote
places
– job satisfaction and motivation is low
• recent financial constraints
– strong pressure to reduce staff, and the field level has been hit
hardest
– remaining have little, if any, material resources left to maintain
mobility
11
 Criticisms: Ministry-Based … (3)
• adequate and location-specific answers to a farmer's
problem are often not available because it has not
been a research concern
• decision making and management are highly
centralized and formalized
– extension fieldwork, on the other hand, demands
location-specific, flexible, and often quick decisions and
actions.
• organized feedback from clientele is lacking
• farmers may show their discontent by refusing to
cooperate with extension, but they have virtually no
way of influencing institutional reforms
12
 Criticisms: Ministry-Based … (4)
Summary
• inadequate internal organizational structure

• inefficient extension personnel

• inappropriate or irrelevant extension content

• dilution of extension impact

13
 2. Training and Visit (T&V) Approach
• strictly speaking, T&V is not a separate approach
but one way to organize ministry-based extension
• originally meant to solve some very specific
problems of conventional extension services
• issues for discussion on T&V
– organizational structure
– contents and merits over conventional extension
– criticisms
– methods for delivery
– capacity of extension personnel
14
 3. Integrated/Project Approach
• aim at influencing the entire rural development process
• extension is only one though often crucial element in
this strategy
• generally implemented in the form of large-scale and
foreign-funded projects
– alleviating mass poverty in rural areas
– on the basis of "a simultaneous improvement in the
utilization of natural resources and of human potential”
• promote production and a strong emphasis on self-help
• underlying concept is typically multi-sectoral

15
 4. University-Based Extension
• Cooperative Extension Service (CES) of the United States
• in the US, state universities have traditionally cooperated
with local counties and the U.S. Department of Agriculture
in doing extension besides education and research
• in the last 130 years, extension goals of the land-grant
colleges have shifted
– from practical education to technology transfer
– more recently, to human resource development
• some developing countries, notably India, have integrated
educational institutions into practical extension work

16
 University-Based … (2)
• with the emergence of strong private and
other public sector research and dramatic
changes within the agricultural production
sector
– CES is facing new challenges with regard to
coordination and cooperation
– apart from its traditional roles
 networking as a primary role
 industry as well as intermediate and end users
of knowledge become part of the extension
system 17
 5. The Participatory Agricultural
Extension Approach
• active participation by farmers
– produces a reinforcing effect in group learning and
group action
• through group meetings, demonstrations,
individual and group travel, and local sharing of
appropriate technologies
• focuses on the expressed needs of farmers’ groups
• its goal is to increase production and improve
quality of rural life
• implementation is often decentralized and flexible18
 Participatory Agricultural … (2)
• there is much to be gained by combining
indigenous knowledge with science
• expressed needs of farmers are targeted
• extension staff
– do not impose concepts or technologies
– become facilitators/catalysts, helping
communities achieve the goals they have
defined
• local people evaluate their own programs and
play a role in establishing research agendas
19
 Main Characteristics of Participatory
Agricultural Extension Approach
• integrates community mobilization for planning and
action
– with rural development, agricultural extension and research
• is based on an equal partnership between farmers,
researchers and extension agents
– who can all learn from each other and contribute their
knowledge and skills
• aims to strengthen rural people’s problem-solving,
planning and management abilities
• promotes farmers’ capacity to adopt and develop new
and appropriate technologies/innovations 20
 Main Characteristics of Participatory
Agricultural Extension … (2)
• encourages farmers to learn through
– experimentation, building on their own knowledge and
practices and
– blending them with new ideas
– ‘action reflection’ or ‘action learning’
• recognizes that communities are not homogeneous
– consist of various social groups with conflicts and
differences in interests, power and capabilities
– each group then makes its collective decisions, and also
provides opportunities to negotiate between groups

21
6. The Farming Systems Approach
• assumes that technology which fits the needs of
farmers, particularly small-scale farmers, is not
available and needs to be generated locally
• planning evolves slowly and may be different for
each agro-climatic farm ecosystem
• is implemented through a partnership of research
and extension personnel using a systems approach
• technology for local needs is developed locally
through an iterative process involving local people

22
 The Farming Systems … (2)
• analyses and field trials are carried out on
farmers’ fields and in homes
• advantages of this system include
– strong linkages between extension and
research personnel, and
– commitment of farmers to using
technologies they helped to develop
• costs can be high, and results can be slow
in coming 23
 7. Commodity-Based Approach
• is the predominant feature in many francophone
countries of Africa
• is also strong in other countries with commercial
or export crops
• original rationale
– generation of revenue
– assured supply of tropical products for the colonial
powers
• today, goals are still clearly and intentionally
production and profit oriented
24
 Commodity-Based … (2)
• focus on only one or two crops
– facilitates training of extension workers
• control of agents and farmers is easy, because
they are judged in terms of defined targets
• rigidity of the system
– leaves little room for incorporating farmers'
needs
• is useful in terms of technology transfer
– but leaves out important public interest
issues (such as environmental protection) 25
 8. Cost-Sharing/Commercial Extension
Approach
• a recent phenomenon
• typical of either industrialized forms of agriculture or
the most modem sector of an otherwise traditional
agriculture
• may be either part of the sales strategy of input supply
firms or
• a specialized consultancy service demanded by an
agricultural producer
• the goal of the organization or the individual is profit
earning
– tied very closely to customer satisfaction 26
 Cost-Sharing/Commercial … (2)
•large input supply firms or rural banks
–their own extension workers as sales personnel
–have a long-term perspective with regard to the competitiveness
of their products and services
•clients of commercial extension will also be profit
oriented
–their objective is the optimal utilization of purchased inputs or
contracted expertise
•debate on who should bear the costs of extension
•escalating budget deficits

27
 Cost-Sharing/Commercial … (3)
• it is argued that those who can afford it
should actually pay for advisory services
• in the case of commercial input suppliers, the
solution is very simple
– the costs of extension are included in the
product price, as are the costs for research
or advertisement
• private consultancy is costly and affordable
only to either large-scale or highly specialized
producers
28
Client-Based & Client-Controlled Extension

• one way of dealing with the shortcomings of large

extension systems
– localize extension and
– utilize the self-help potential of rural groups
• often organized by outsiders
• these decentralized approaches
– in better position to serve the needs of specific target groups
 those in disadvantaged positions
• close contact with their clients and intimate knowledge
of their life situations are essential for the planning of
problem-oriented extension activities
29
 Client-Based … (2)
• local personalities are identified who
take over leader functions once the
external (NGO) withdraws
• the principles of these organizations
– awareness,
– empowerment,
– participation,
– self-help
30
 Changing Approaches to Support
Agricultural Extension

1)National Agricultural Research Systems (NARS)

2)Agricultural Knowledge and Information

System (AKIS/KISARD)

3)Innovation Systems

31
 National Agricultural Research System
(NARS)
• focus on strengthening research supply
– by providing infrastructure, capacity, management,
and policy support at the national level
• comprises all of the entities in a given country
that are responsible for
– organizing,
– coordinating, or
– executing research
 that contributes explicitly to the development of its
agriculture and the maintenance of its natural resource
base
32
 Agricultural Knowledge and Information
System (AKIS)
• In the 1990s, the concept of AKIS gained importance
• AKIS links people and institutions
– to promote mutual learning and
– to generate, share, and utilize agriculture-related
technology, knowledge, and information
• AKIS integrates farmers, agricultural educators,
researchers, and extensionists
– to harness knowledge and information from various
sources for improved livelihoods
– farmers are at the heart of this knowledge triangle
33
 AKIS … (2)
• recognizes that research is not the only
means of generating or gaining access to
knowledge
• although it focuses on research supply,
– gives much more attention to the links
between research, education, and
extension
• also focuses on identification of farmers’
demand for new technologies
34
 Innovation Systems
• recently more attention has been given to the
demand for research and technology and to the
development of
– wider competencies,
– linkages,
– enabling attitudes,
– practices,
– governance structures, and
– policies that allow this knowledge to be put into
productive use
• an innovation system has guided this more holistic
approach to planning knowledge production and use 35
 Innovation Systems … (2)
• defined as comprising the organizations,
enterprises, and individuals that together
demand and supply knowledge and technology,
and the rules and mechanisms by which these
different agents interact
• focuses not merely on the science suppliers but
on the totality and interaction of actors involved
in innovation
• thus, innovation is viewed in a social and
economic sense and not purely as discovery and
invention 36
 Innovation Systems … (3)
• offers a holistic explanation of how knowledge is
produced, diffused, and used
– emphasizes the actors and processes that have become
increasingly important in agricultural development
• this market-led agricultural development relies
more strongly on the private sector and on the
interaction of agriculture with other sectors and
disciplines
• because new markets for agricultural products and
services change continuously, agricultural
development depends more than ever on a
process of continuous, incremental innovation 37
 Innovation Systems … (4)
• scope of innovation includes
– technology and production,
– organizations (in the sense of attitudes, practices, and new
ways of working),
– management, and
– marketing changes.
• therefore, requiring new types of knowledge not usually
associated with agricultural research and new ways of
using this knowledge
• ways of producing and using knowledge must also adapt
and change
• emphasizes adaptive tendencies as a central element of
innovation capacity 38
 Compare: NARS, AKIS and Agricultural
Innovation System
• Purpose
• Actors
• Outcomes
• Organizing principle
• Mechanism for innovation
• Degree of market integration
• Role of policy
• Nature of capacity strengthening
39
 The period before the mid-1980s emphasized expanding public sector research by
Early 1980s investing in physical infrastructure, equipment, and human resource
and beyond development. In many cases the investments created centralized national
agricultural
research systems (NARS)

Management systems. From the late 1980s the emphasis shifted to improving the
Late 1980s management of existing public sector research organizations through better
Mid- to planning ,improved financial management, greater accountability, and increasing the
relevance of programs to clients.

Down to the grassroots. In the mid- to late 1990s, the instability and inefficiency
late1990s evident in many public research organizations led to an emphasis on development of
pluralistic agricultural knowledge and information systems (AKISs) with greater client
participation and financing

Innovation systems. More recently, the approach has moved towards the concept of
Current “agricultural innovation systems” (AIS) and focuses on strengthening the broad
2000s spectrum of science and technology activity of organizations, enterprises, and
individuals that demand and supply knowledge and technologies and the rules and
mechanisms by which these different agents interact.

40
 NARS, AKIS, and agricultural innovation systems compared

Defining NARS AKIS Agricultural innovation

feature system
Purpose Planning capacity for Strengthening Strengthening the capacity
agricultural research, communication and to innovate throughout the
technology development, knowledge delivery services agricultural production and
and technology transfer to people in the rural sector marketing system

Actors National agricultural National agricultural research Potentially all actors in the public and private sectors
research organizations, organizations, agricultural universities involved in the creation, diffusion, adaptation, and
agricultural universities or or faculties of agriculture, extension use of all types of knowledge relevant to agricultural
faculties of agriculture, services, farmers, NGOs, and production and marketing
extension services, and entrepreneurs in rural areas
farmers

Outcome Technology invention and Technology adoption and Combinations of technical and institutional innovations
technology transfer innovation in agricultural throughout the production, marketing, policy research,
production and enterprise domains

Organizing principle Using science to create Accessing agricultural New uses of knowledge for social and economic change
inventions knowledge
Mechanism for Transfer of technology Interactive learning Interactive learning
Innovation
Degree of market Nil Low High
Integration
Role of policy Resource allocation, Enabling framework Setting Integrated component and
priority enabling framework
Nature of capacity Infrastructure and human communication between Strengthening interactions between actors; institutional
strengthening resource development actors in rural areas development and change to support interaction, learning
Strengthening and innovation; creating an 41
enabling environment