Graduate programs in agriculture in developing countries such as in Ethiopia are often designed in cognizance of the need for skilled manpower for gricultural development. In Ethiopia, the contribution of graduates of agricultural graduate programs to the ttempt to transform smallholder agriculture has become a matter of urgency in the face of the increasing challenge of food insecurity. However, the performance of graduates of those programs in making oncrete contributions to the urgent needs of agricultural development has been patchy at best. There ight be no single best solution as to how to make agricultural graduate programs and/or their raduates responsive to the needs of agricultural development. In particular, hopes that effective teaching nd learning in agricultural graduate programs would lead their students to attain the relevant knowledge and skills to make concrete contributions to agricultural development are frequently not realized. ...

Since the late 1980s, support to agriculture has moved from top-down agricultural extension towards more participatory approaches which better suit smallholders. One such approach is the farmer field school (FFS), an adult education intervention which uses intensive discovery-based learning to promote skills. Although an estimated 12 million farmers have been trained by FFS in over 90 countries across Asia, Africa and Latin America, the effectiveness of this approach has long been a subject of debate. Drawing on a systematic review of over 500 documents, this study finds that, although FFSs have changed practices and raised yields in pilot projects, they have not been effective when taken to scale.

The FFS approach requires a degree of facilitation and skilled facilitators, which are difficult to sustain beyond the life of the pilot programmes. FFS typically promotes better use of pesticides, which requires hands-on experience to encourage adoption. As a result, diffusion is unlikely and has rarely occurred in practice.

Teagasc Better Practice in Evaluation Services, Ireland

The proceedings of the 2012 conference

MEAS provides user-friendly materials for dissemination as well as training programs that promote new strategies and approaches to rural extension and advisory service delivery. The modules and their brief descriptions are being published upon approval as "in progress". Upon completion, the training material will be made accessible as well.