The study examines the technology transfer function and concludes that this activity will become increasingly privatized as technologies become progressively more proprietary as farmers become more commercialized. As this transition occurs, more and more of the cost of providing technical advisory services to farmers will be recovered through the sale of production inputs and services.

However, in most developing countries, there can and should be closer cooperation between the public and private sectors because many input suppliers do not have technically competent sales personnel who can give correct technical advice to farmers. Therefore, rather than public extension personnel viewing the private sector as competitors, they should develop public–private partnerships with for  input supply dealers because these firms provide most of the one-on-one technical advisory services, especially to large commercial farmers and, to a lesser extent, to small-scale farmers unless they are organised as producer groups.

by Edward Kuseva, Kenya