This document1 is targeted at the Global Forum for Rural Advisory Services (GFRAS) community: regional networks, working groups, funders, members, and affiliates. The document presents the strategic framework through which GFRAS aims to fulfil its vision and mission for the period 2016–2025. It explains why the forum was created and why a new strategy is needed (background and rationale), what GFRAS wants to achieve (vision and mission), and how this will be done (strategic fields of action).

Of the world’s 1 billion plus poor, seventy-five percent live in rural areas and most of these people depend on agriculture to survive. Enhancing farmers’ and agricultural workers’ livelihoods is therefore a key element in addressing global poverty. While farmers are faced by many problems, three are regularly cited as amongst the most important, namely: 1) access to credit, 2) access to better market prices, and 3) access to credible, relevant information. 

In terms of information access, there has been increasing attention given to the potential of Information Communication Technology (ICT) to better connect farmers with the information they need. ICT has the capacity to dramatically expand communication between people and to improve access to information (and money). The question has been how can this promise of ICT be realistically harnessed to help the world’s rural agricultural poor?

Information Communication Technology (ICT) has tremendous power to strengthen our Agricultural Extension efforts. However, many ICT efforts are unsuccessful as they neglect elements that help build success. Use “AID” (Awareness, Interest, Doable) to evaluate your ICT program.

A MEAS factsheet

2014 was an exciting year at GFRAS. We focused on several different endeavours. The first of these was the position paper on the role of producer organisations in rural advisory services (RAS). This was linked to the International Year of Family Farming. GFRAS believes that producer organisations (including farmers and other rural entrepreneurs) play a critical role in advisory services. As follow up to the 2013 annual meeting, which focused on the role of producer organisations in RAS, in 2014, GFRAS engaged in a series of online dialogues, face-to-face discussions, literature review, and gathering of experiences on this topic, which culminated in the position paper. 

This report contains the full audited financial statement that is not present in the printed copies.

The brief calls for the reform of curricula and learning materials. It urges decision makers to better balance the training of extension professionals between technical and functional competencies. It promotes the idea of the “extension professional,” and the need for professional associations where extension professionals can exchange experiences and gain new knowledge.

To put simply, from a techpreneur’s point of view, Indian agriculture is still probably in the “Paleolithic period”, falling way behind its Western counterparts in terms of achieving efficiency through use of technological interventions. The country seems to continue to bask in the glory of ‘Green Revolution’ being oblivious of the imminent need to make progress. (This was succinctly narrated in a story in The Economist entitled “Farming in India: In a time warp”.) One of the main reasons for such lackluster attitudes could possibly be the entrenched “politicization” of policies and the firm grip of the government. This is primarily limiting the ability and prospects of involvement by the private sector. But there is promise for a better future in the relentless optimism of a growing class of passionate and young entrepreneurs in the country. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/indian-agriculture-ready-gadgetization-raghavan-sampathkumar?published=u

If one asks whether India’s green revolution has helped the country to achieve self-sufficiency in food, the obvious answer from the people of the highest echelons of policy making and politics would be a chest-thumping "YES". But, in truth, what was happening was literally “policy hi-jacking” by few groups with vested interests and the intent to maintain their status quo under the guise of augmenting food security. In the process, nutritional security, health and wellbeing of the population have become collateral damages. Click to read: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/game-grains-why-indias-agri-food-policies-need-review-sampathkumar?trk=mp-reader-card

"If the global food & agriculture industry were a person, what are (or should be) his/her pension plans”. This series is about exploring the current situation of the global agri-food sector in the context of looming crises at large. The idea is similar to anyone investing in a pension plan to secure his/her future but the question is whether the ag-food industry is doing it or not as the number of mouths to be fed grows to 9 billion by 2050 and an increase of at least 60-70% is needed in food production. Ever since I started writing this series, I have been learning so many interesting things that I am sharing, to the extent possible, in an easy to understand manner. Click here to read more: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/part-5-hey-ag-whats-your-pension-plan-raghavan-sampathkumar?trk=mp-author-card

Esta Guía de Evaluación de Extensión Rural ha sido desarrollada por el Foro Global para los Servicios de Asesoría Rural (GFRAS). El propósito es apoyar a las personas involucradas en la evaluación de extensión a elegir cómo llevar a cabo evaluaciones más completas, rigurosas, creíbles y útiles. La Guía ayuda a los lectores a entender los diferentes tipos de evaluación, para tomar decisiones sobre lo que es más apropiado para sus circunstancias, y para acceder a otras fuentes de información teórico-prácticas.

Participation of farmers in all steps of SRI trials and demonstrations help to re-shape the technology. Extension workers working together with farmers in diversified farming and agro-ecological conditions enhanced some of the SRI recommendations/practices according to soil type and other conditions, in particular varieties and farmers' socio-economic situation. These modifications proved to have good results and SRI has been disseminated to several districts of the country. These results emphasized that such partnership and modification can be helpful to increase technology acceptance, especially for those farmers who have poor resource and living far from modern agriculture development.

It was an afternoon of 2002 when I first read about SRI. As an extension officer in the District Agriculture Development Office (DADO), I started promoting SRI in the following years in the district of Morang, Nepal. Over this time I observed hundreds of attractive SRI fields and spent some years as a SRI activist. Looking at the results, I’ve learnt that different farmers face different problems, and that they adapt all techniques to suit their diverse circumstances and needs.

Farmers who have introduced mechanization into their rice farming have found that they can reduce production costs by 27% and increase their profits ha-1 by 36%. Those who have employed mechanization together with SRI methods have achieved 55% higher production ha-1 and earned 58% more profit. Mechanization with SRI methods, doubling plant-to-plant spacing and reducing seedling age by half, cuts farmers’ seed requirements by 50%. Labor requirements are reduced by 60%, and the time required for all of the main rice-farming activities by 70%. Thus rice farmers in Nepal’s terai could find mechanization to be a solution for labor shortages.