Farmers in Nepal are getting the most out of their farms, both in nutrition as well as in economic terms, by integrating a variety of crops on the farm.

This document summarises the major conclusions of participants of the 5th GFRAS Annual Meeting, held in Spetember 2014, regarding the relevance of an evidence-based RAS policy environment, how RAS policies should look, and how they can be influenced the 5th GFRAS Annual Meeting

Though the farming community struggles hard to get the best out of crop production, price realization is in the hands of other market players’ viz., traders and commission agents. The farmers seldom get accurate information about local markets or the preferences of the end-consumers. This information asymmtricity will cultivate opportunistic behavior of traders resulting in meager profit margins and uncertain farm profitability on the producers’ side. Hence the market information should reach the farmers so as to make needed and quicker decisions so as to supply the commodities where they could get better prices. To bridge the information divide, new and advanced Information and Communication Technology (ICT) tools such as Computers, Internet and Mobile phones have tremendous potential to facilitate information transfer to farming community. In this context, the present study documents the impact of mobile market advisory services among the users in Tamil Nadu.

With the theme of "Extension Services for Better Well-being," this agricultural extension policy document aims to support, facilitate, and coordinate the work of all extension services providers in Cambodia so that farmers and farming communities receive regular extension services and timely, adequate, accessible, and adaptable technical information.

The author asks the question, how evidence can best be prepared, packaged and made available to have the highest chance of impact (influencing the policy process).

A rapid improvement in food production, food security and farm incomes is a pressing national priority and Government of Timor Leste has been directing considerable resources to this objective. However, the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries has previously lacked the capability to work effectively with farmers. Part of the Government’s strategic response to the food security challenge has been to establish a new agricultural extension system with the capacity to provide support and encouragement to farmers in all parts of the country.

This document gives an overview of the development of extension in Timor Leste as well as key policy issues.

This Agricultural Extension MAnual is built on the Agricultural Extension Policy and Strategy for Timor-Leste and serves three purposes: (1) It guides agricultural extensionists and coordinators during planning and field level implementation of agricultural extension activities. (2) It gives guidance to representatives on national and district levels as to their supportive roles in the development of agricultural extension contents. (3) It serves as reference for agricultural extension personnel of donor funded programs, local NGOs, and INGOs working in agricultural extension in Timor-Leste.

This document is divided into two main sections. Section one gives a brief background of the political, administrative changes in the democratic dispensation and recommendations for the delivery mechanism in the South African agricultural sector. This sets the basis for articulating appropriate norms and standards. Section two focuses on the norms and standards to guide the provision of extension and advisory services to all spectra of clients. These norms and standards form the guidelines for the implementation of Agricultural Advisory Service Programme across all provinces.

The author reviews and analyses examples of existing agricultural extension policy documents from Africa (Nigeria, Malawi, Ghana) and Asia (Bangladesh).

The table of contents in this document gives an example of the structure of an extension policy document.

The GFRAS roster of experts contains contacts and short profiles of people from all over the world working in extension and advisory services that offer their expertise to the RAS community.

This document describes the Federation of Free Farmers Cooperatives efforts to influence the formulation of proper RAS policies and their translation into effective programs and services that benefit small-scale producers in the Philippines.

Three definitions of policy.

The Comprehensive Agricultural Policy Framework document gives the situation analysis of the agricultural sector, highlights the vision, goals, objectives and detailed policy statements and strategies for the development of the Zimbabwean agricultural sector during the period 2012 – 2032.

The Government of the Republic of Zambia has formulated a Livestock Development Policy to guide the effective implementation of activities and programmes in the livestock sub-sector. The Policy defines the overall objective and sets specific priority policy guidelines and strategies for achieving the vision of Government for livestock development.