After a successful 10^th edition in Jamaica, the 11^th GFRAS Annual Meeting will take place from 4-7 October 2020 at the Baltic Beach Hotel in Jūrmala, Latvia. The meeting will discuss digitalisation trends in Rural Advisory Services and the potential of digitalization for knowledge transfer amongst RAS workers. Registration will open in Spring 2020.

A call for hosts for the 2021 and 2022 Annual Meeting editions is available here. Interested organisations and networks are encouraged to submit their proposals until 29 February 2020. In line with its new operational plan, the discussions held in Jamaica, as well as in future Annual Meetings, will lead to the publication of Issue Papers, a publication series highlighting rural advisory services in important contemporary international development topics.

During the last six years (2013-2019), the Agricultural Extension in South Asia (AESA) Network has served as a platform for collating the voices, insights, concerns, and experiences of people in the extension sphere of South Asia. Diverse professionals shared their concerns on the present and future of Extension and Advisory Services (EAS) in the form of blog conversations for AESA. Together, all of these individuals who are involved, interested and passionate about EAS, discussed ways to move beyond some of the seemingly intransigent problems that are hindering the professionalization of EAS. Nevertheless, these blogs also take the time to celebrate and salute the signs of promising new beginnings.

This publication is AESA's effort to compile 100 such conversations on EAS, which were originally published as blogs, starting in February 2013. The goal is to create a reference document for a wide spectrum of actors involved in EAS – scholars, practitioners, trainers, faculty, innovation intermediaries, mentors, leaders, and managers – all of whom are involved in driving agricultural and rural transformation.

To download, click here.

Carl Erik Schou Larsen is the new Executive Secretary of the Global Forum for Rural Advisory Services. Dr. Larsen holds a Ph.D. and Master Degree in Tropical Animal Husbandry from the University of Copenhagen and a Master of Public Administration from Copenhagen Business School in Denmark. He worked in Ethiopia and Kenya with the International Livestock Research Institute and has experience with both the private sector and NGOs in the agricultural field.

Larsen previously worked as a Senior Agriculture Education consultant for the World Bank’s Global Practice for Education and Global Practice for Agriculture as well as FAO’s Investment Centre. He specializes in institutional and human performance enhancement within agriculture research and extension as well as within higher education and has extensive experience in design, supervision, and evaluation of agriculture projects.

His broad international experience makes him able to quickly understand local contexts and needs in new settings and situations. Coupled with his ability to give constructive advice based on updated academic knowledge/information, this makes him a valuable external evaluator and resource person.

Click here to read a brief interview with him:

RELASER - Red Latinoamericana de Servicios de Extensíon Rural - has officially joined the ranks as a partner of the Tropical Agriculture Platform (TAP). TAP and its partners use this platform as a means to exchange experiences and learn from each other with the goal to strengthen innovation capacities in agriculture.

Partners in TAP include national agricultural research, education and extension institutions, private sector, civil society, and farmers’ organizations from the G20 and developing countries, as well as key regional and international fora, networks and agencies.