Presentation by Dr Arame Tall from IFPRI, coordinator/champion for CCAFS. Describes how to empower farmers to confront climate risks through climate services including extension, and how extension can support this.

2013 conference on ICTs4Ag conference recommendations including for extension and advisory services

In 2013 GFRAS underwent a mid-term review. The GFRAS steering committee wished to be informed if the forum was doing the right things and doing things right. Different aspects of GFRAS, such as organisational structure and processes, objectives and strategic orientation, governance and management, and work performance – as well as the forum’s role and position in an evolving international context of agricultural development – were appraised, and the forum’s main accomplishments and challenges faced during the period of 2010 to early 2013 were assessed. The review serves as a policy and managerial tool for GFRAS steering committee decisions regarding the immediate future, and includes forward-looking insights and practical recommendations regarding future options for GFRAS, within the existing strategic framework and beyond.

2020 Resilience Conference Brief 13 - Building Resilience for Food and Nutrition Security - May 15-17, 2014 - Addis Ababa, Ethiopia Although there is an increasing base of literature on extension and advisory services, their role in building resilience in particular has not yet been explored empirically. The literature on resilience in general is itself only in the nascent stage. However, past intervention efforts that attempt to move from emergency responses to long-term development indicate that without well-capacitated systems for implementing interventions, such a transition could be difficult. This brief explores the sustainable-livelihoods framework to conceptualize the capacity needs of resilience-focused extension and advisory services. It indicates where to move the policy and research agenda forward with regard to the role of extension and advisory services in building resilience.

Mbo’o-Tchouawou, M. and Colverson, K.E. 2014. Increasing access to agricultural extension and advisory services: How effective are new approaches in reaching women farmers in rural areas? ILRI Discussion Paper. Nairobi, Kenya: ILRI In many developing countries, rural populations are heavily dependent on agriculture as well as different social services for their livelihoods. Yet access to adequate knowledge, improved technologies, financial services and other relevant social services remains a critical issue. This paper reviews selected approaches to agricultural extension and advisory services (EAS) and particularly discusses the effectiveness of EAS delivery processes for reaching poor women and men farmers on an equal basis. A wide range of traditional and reformed EAS delivery systems have been tried in many developing countries, but very little has been achieved in systematically considering a gender perspective in the provision of agricultural advisory services...

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.

This report, Farmer field schools: from agricultural extension to adult education, 3ie Systematic Review Summary 1, is a summary of the full review that is designed to be useful to policymakers and practitioners. The full review and all of its appendixes will be available through the Campbell Collaboration in early May 2014. All content is the sole responsibility of the authors and does not represent the opinions of 3ie, its donors or the 3ie Board of Commissioners. Any errors are the sole responsibility of the authors. Questions or comments about this review should be directed to the corresponding author, Hugh Waddington at [email protected]. Waddington, H and White, H, 2014. Farmer field schools: from agricultural extension to adult education, 3ie Systematic Review Summary 1. London: International Initiative for Impact Evaluation (3ie).

 

This brief explains the concept of gender equality in advisory services and discusses the opportunities that gender equality in rural advisory services can create for global and local food production, women’s economic empowerment, household food security, and nutrition. It summarises experiences of how gender equality can be pursued in advisory services and provides some practical examples.

This publication is reviewed on Twitter. Follow #genderinras

 

This brief explains the concept of gender equality in advisory services and discusses the opportunities that gender equality in rural advisory services can create for global and local food production, women’s economic empowerment, household food security, and nutrition. It summarises experiences of how gender equality can be pursued in advisory services and provides some practical examples.

This publication is reviewed on Twitter. Follow #genderinras

 

This book makes the bold claim that empowered women and men are better, more successful farmers who can make the most of the opportunities around them. We argue that there is a causal relation between more equal gender relations in the household and in the community, and better agricultural outcomes. The one underpins the other. This is a radical thing to say, because it means that the standard development interventions – more extension services, better information, more fertilizer, better machinery – will not fully achieve their goals unless women and men are on equal footing, able to make rational economic decisions unhindered by gender norms that limit what is “appropriate” for women or for men to do, or to be.
Empowering women as decision-makers in all areas of their lives is challenging and exciting. It is a key to poverty reduction. Transforming gender relations will help to make smallholder agriculture and associated development efforts more effective and efficient, with knock-on effects for a variety of development outcomes.

This case study explores the Voluntary Service Overseas (VSO) Ghana’s women extension volunteer (WEV) model. The WEV model is a peer-to-peer extension approach that uses community-based female volunteers to increase agricultural information dissemination in rural northern Ghana. The model is part of a national volunteering flagship program of VSO Ghana, a non-governmental organization (NGO). It was initiated in 2009 as a joint effort with the Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MoFA). The case study is based on fieldwork performed from August through November 2012 in nine districts across the three northern regions of Ghana. The study specifically explores what the volunteer model has been able to achieve and in what ways it effectively increases extension services for female farmers. The primary benefits of the model are identified as strengthening farmer groups and enhancing the liaison between farmers and public sector extension agents and NGOs. The study also covers factors that can determine the sustainability of this model, such as recruitment, program development and support from MoFA. The study concludes that, although the volunteers perform some extension duties, they currently have limited abilities in providing technical agricultural information or introducing farmers to agricultural innovations or new technologies. As it stands, their role is complementary to that of public extension agents in that they can expand gender-specific extension services by liaising between service providers and women farmers in areas already being served and helping facilitate dissemination of information in their communities, but they cannot be expected to replace agricultural extension personnel.

This guide aims to provide a range of traditional and innovative technologies that make a positive contribution to strengthening food security in Melanesia in response to climate change. It aims to encourage rural farmers in Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu to think about, and start to prepare for, the impacts of climate change in their communities. It is written for farmers and field or extension workers, teachers and others who work with farmers.

 

Rural Advisory Services (RAS) could considerably contribute to breaking the vicious cycle of disability and poverty - if RAS would take more consciously into account the needs and the potentials of persons who are affected by disability. 

The paper describes the challenge and provides some core facts and figures on disability. It also summarizes the framework for change. 

Some elements are suggested on how RAS could boost their contributions to the reduction of hunger and poverty applying a disability-inclusive rural development approach.

 

A review of land reforms in fifteen countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America and Asia. The report examines the role of Development coperation in land reforms and the extent to which donor organisations have addressed cocerns related to gender equality

Policies and market incentives for smallholder-inclusive food value chains This book offers an in-depth analyses of value chain policies, past and present in West Africa. The book contains a large number of in-depth case studies of food value chains in particular countries, including traditional export commodities (cocoa, cotton), high value exports (mangoes, horticulture) and the most important staple food value chains (oil palm, rice, maize, sorghum and millet and cassava) in the region. It also contains a large number of private and public initiatives, and thematic analyses relating to the role of the private agro-industry and producer organisations and their role as market agents.