It is commonly accepted that evidence is relevant to design and implement RAS policies. Nonetheless, what kind of evidence is relevant and how evidence relates to effective and efficient RAS policies still must be discussed and clarified. 

Agricultural extension uses a number of different terms to describe specific concepts and approaches.  Also, because there are different schools of thought about how agricultural extension systems should be organized and function, these different points of view can lead to interesting debates.The extension glossary of Modernizing Extension and Advisory Services (MEAS) offers a common ground.

Extension and advisory services (EAS) by private and public extension services providers (ESPs) can elp improve food security, income generation, poverty alleviation and development. These services articularly benefit smallholder subsistence farmers.  This study explores EAS approaches employed by the private and public sectors and their impacts on ustainable agricultural development among smallholders. 

The survey covered five out of the eight provinces in Kenya. The smallholder farmers and ESPs epresented 86 percent and 90 percent, respectively, of the target respondents. The study covered armers who had been involved in production and marketing for over 10 years and ESPs who had  orked with smallholder farmers for more than two years. The National Agricultural Sector Extension olicy (NASEP) set the guidelines for the survey.

Development organizations rely on a number of different strategies to facilitate farmers’ awareness of, access to and ultimately adoption of improved production and marketing practices; to promote inclusivity; and to ensure program sustainability. The study revealed definitive trends in their approaches and methodologies. Most of the interviewed organizations (1) establish farmer field schools and demonstration plots, (2) build capacity of lead farmers and rely on them to foster continued knowledge exchanges, and (3) provide farmers with credit mechanisms and increase their access to markets, particularly through the use of Information Communication Technologies (ICTs). Another strong trend suggests that development organizations strive to ensure program sustainability by engaging the private-for-profit sector and building local capacities. Finally, our findings suggest that organizations attempt to mainstream gender issues, include participatory planning in project design, and pursue participatory monitoring and evaluation strategies throughout the project cycle, though implementing participatory approaches can be a challenge. During the interviews the organizations shared some particularly successful approaches and strategies that have helped them in pursuing their objectives, but also discussed implementation challenges.

This document has been prepared to inspire reflection about the role of communication in advancing family farming. It includes an analysis of examples of ComDev approaches applied to smallholder farming and rural development and the issues that they encompass: food security, natural resource management, rural livelihoods, agricultural innovation, and capacity development. One emerging concept is that of “rural communication services,” which seeks to enhance rural livelihoods by facilitating equitable access to knowledge and information – understood as public goods – along with social inclusion in decision-making and stronger links between rural institutions and local communities.6 An additional concept pertains to the need to develop national communication for development policies and strategies that focus on the information and communication needs of family farmers and rural communities. Such policies would help to mainstream and institutionalize ComDev  pproaches at different levels and among all development partners, in particular among  overnmental agriculture and telecommunication ministries and media regulators but also among  armers’ organizations, rural institutions, community media and the private sector.

India’s milk supply comes from millions of small producers, dispersed throughout the rural areas. These farmers maintain an average herd of one or two milch animals, comprising cows and/or buffaloes. Ample labour and a small land base encourage farmers to practice dairying as an occupation subsidiary to agriculture. While income from crop production is seasonal, dairying provides a stable, year-round income, which is an important economic incentive for the small farmer. Over the past two decades, the demand for services related to animal breeding, health care and marketing support have increased manifold.

Agriculture continues to be the most important sector of the Indian economy and agriculture is a more or less a compulsion for livelihood of millions of farmers. Land and water resources have almost reached their limits, price of commodities are fluctuating almost every day, profits are negligible for most of the marginal and small farmers and most of all getting information is cumbersome. In present day agriculture, soft resources like knowledge and skills are as important as hard resources like inputs, and sometimes more important. But estimates indicate that 60 per cent of farmers do not access any source of information for advanced agricultural technologies resulting in huge adoption gap. The requirement of field level extension personnel is estimated to be about 1.3 -1.5 million against the present availability of about 0.1 million personnel. The mobile phone comes into the picture here. In today’s world,  almost everybody owns a mobile phone. This huge reach, if harnessed in agricultural extension, can change the face of agriculture altogether in a developing country like India where we have nothing to lose by using it as a medium to disseminate agricultural information in multimodal form. Many initiatives have been taken in this regard to utilize mobile phones by private sector ( Indian Farmers Fertilizer Cooperative Limited, Nokia, Airtel, Tata Consultancy Services, etc. ) and public sector (Ministry of Agriculture, Universities like Tamil Nadu Agricultural University,  research institutions like Indian Council of Agricultural Research, State Governments of Haryana and Kerala, Indian Meteorological Department and others) in agricultural advisory service for agronomic practices, weather forecasts and market price . With increased dependency, the mobile phone is becoming a common communication platform of the world, especially for agriculture.

The future success of demand-driven, market-oriented rural advisory services rests in large part on the formation and capacities of farmer groups. A majority of development success stories are the direct result of or dependent on collective action. However, the multifaceted role of farmer organizations in extension efforts is not well understood. In many contexts, the story of local rural development efforts is a tale of failed farmer groups. The majority of those groups, created for various purposes by national agencies or development organizations, commonly lacked essential elements that could have assured their longevity. Improving our understanding of the role of farmer organizations in development outcomes is clearly critical to identifying options and strategies for promoting successful rural advisory services (RAS).

This paper rests on two working assumptions. First, working with community-based farmer groups represents an essential means for strengthening farmer capacity to be involved in a wide range of agricultural and rural development activities, to participate in markets and to be involved in policy formation. Second, different types of investment in RAS influence the types of services available to farmer groups and, consequently, groups’ collective capacity to access and make effective demands on RAS.

We would like to share with you a brief on a new project that recently launched on Capacity Development for Agricultural Innovation System (CDAIS). It is a partnership between AGRINATURA and FAO for 4 years in 8 countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America.

This Position Paper was written to raise awareness of the roles of producer organisations in rural advisory services, and to contribute to discussions about how their effectiveness in these roles can be increased so that they contribute to improved livelihoods and poverty reduction. It is aimed at all actors involved  in the provision of rural advisory services, including  producer organisations themselves.

We argue that rural advisory services will contribute to improved rural livelihoods and poverty reduction  if they are demand-driven and pluralistic. Demand-orientation ensures that services meet the expressed needs of farmers. Pluralism – the co-existence of a variety of rural advisory service providers with specific comparative advantages – ensures that services can match the diversity of rural livelihoods.

Farmers are by nature Innovative. It is their innovativeness that kept life on earth. This document is a M.Sc Thesis on same submitted to Haramaya University, formerly Alemaya University.

CTA selected rural resource centers as one of their top 20 agricultural innovations after their call on this in 2014. Attached is the draft fact sheet they helped ICRAF to prepare. Rural Resource Centres (RRCs) are training and demonstration hubs that are managed by grassroots organisations.

The U.S. Land-Grant Model and Other Examples

Summary of an International Seminar/Webinar
November 7, 2014

This year’s Centennial Anniversary Celebration of the U.S. Cooperative Extension System (CES) highlights the important outreach and service function that the CES continues to provide through the auspices of U.S. Land Grant Universities. With the growing interest in extension around the world – and in keeping with the Centennial Celebration - USDA/NIFA and GFRAS held a webinar to explore the future and potential role of a country’s higher education institution(s) in providing extension/advisory services. Presenters and participants in the webinar were asked to consider:

• What is the unique and critical role that your country’s universities can play in providing extension advisory services?
• How can your universities contribute to the sustainability of extension advisory services?
• What are the key challenges may face university-linked extension services in your country? How can they be overcome? What are the opportunities?

Working Paper by Fernando Landini