Agricultural extension - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Agricultural extension was once known as the application of scientific research and new knowledge to agricultural practices through farmer education. The field of extension now encompasses a wider range of communication and learning activities organised for rural people by professionals from different disciplines, including agriculture

Agriculture

Agriculture is the cultivation of animals, plants, fungi and other life forms for food, fiber, and other products used to sustain life. Agriculture was the key implement in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that nurtured the...

, agricultural marketing

Agricultural marketing

Agricultural marketing covers the services involved in moving an agricultural product from the farm to the consumer. Numerous interconnected activities are involved in doing this, such as planning production, growing and harvesting, grading, packing, transport, storage, agro- and food processing,...

, health

Health

Health is the level of functional or metabolic efficiency of a living being. In humans, it is the general condition of a person's mind, body and spirit, usually meaning to be free from illness, injury or pain...

, and business studies

Business studies

Business studies is an academic subject taught at higher level in Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, India, Ireland, New Zealand, Pakistan, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Zimbabwe and the United Kingdom, as well as at university level in many countries...

.

Extension practitioners can be found throughout the world, usually working for government agencies. They are represented by several professional organizations (such as APEN), networks (such as AGREN) and extension journals (such as Journal of Extension).

Agricultural extension agencies in developing countries have received large amounts of support from international development

International development

International development or global development is a concept that lacks a universally accepted definition, but it is most used in a holistic and multi-disciplinary context of human development — the development of greater quality of life for humans...

organisations such as the World Bank

World Bank

The World Bank is an international financial institution that provides loans to developing countries for capital programmes.The World Bank's official goal is the reduction of poverty...

and the Food and Agriculture Organization

Food and Agriculture Organization

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations is a specialised agency of the United Nations that leads international efforts to defeat hunger. Serving both developed and developing countries, FAO acts as a neutral forum where all nations meet as equals to negotiate agreements and...

(FAO) of the United Nations.

Extension terminology

The term extension
Continuing education
Continuing education is an all-encompassing term within a broad spectrum of post-secondary learning activities and programs. The term is used mainly in the United States and Canada...

was first used to describe adult education programmes in England in the second half of the 19th century; these programmes helped to expand - or extend - the work of universities beyond the campus and into the neighbouring community. The term was later adopted in the United States of America, while in Britain it was replaced with "advisory service" in the 20th century. A number of other terms are used in different parts of the world to describe the same or a similar concept:

Arabic: Al-Ershad (“Guidance”)
Dutch: Voorlichting (“lighting the path”)
German: Beratung (“advisory work”)
French: Vulgarisation (“popularisation”)
Spanish: Capacitación (“Training” "Capacity Building")
Thai, Lao: Song-Suem (“to promote”)
Persian: Tarvij & Gostaresh (“to promote and to extend”)

In the US, an extension agent is a university employee who develops and delivers educational programs to assist people in economic

Economic development

Economic development generally refers to the sustained, concerted actions of policymakers and communities that promote the standard of living and economic health of a specific area...

and community development

Community development

Community development is a broad term applied to the practices and academic disciplines of civic leaders, activists, involved citizens and professionals to improve various aspects of local communities....

, leadership, family issues, agriculture and environment. Another program area extension agents provide is 4-H

4-H

4-H in the United States is a youth organization administered by the National Institute of Food and Agriculture of the United States Department of Agriculture , with the mission of "engaging youth to reach their fullest potential while advancing the field of youth development." The name represents...

and Youth. Many extension agents work for cooperative extension service

Cooperative extension service

The Cooperative Extension Service, also known as the Extension Service of the USDA, is a non-formal educational program implemented in the United States designed to help people use research-based knowledge to improve their lives. The service is provided by the state's designated land-grant...

programs at and-

Definitions of extension

There is no widely accepted definition of agricultural extension. The ten examples given below are taken from a number of books on extension published over a period of more than 50 years:

1949: The central task of extension is to help rural families help themselves by applying science, whether physical or social, to the daily routines of farming, homemaking, and family and community living.

1965: Agricultural extension has been described as a system of out-of-school education for rural people.

1966: Extension personnel have the task of bringing scientific knowledge to farm families in the farms and homes. The object of the task is to improve the efficiency of agriculture.

1973: Extension is a service or system which assists farm people, through educational procedures, in improving farming methods and techniques, increasing production efficiency and income, bettering their levels of living and lifting social and educational standards.

1974: Extension involves the conscious use of communication of information to help people form sound opinions and make good decisions.

1982: Agricultural Extension: Assistance to farmers to help them identify and analyse their production problems and become aware of the opportunities for improvement.

1988: Extension is a professional communication intervention deployed by an institution to induce change in voluntary behaviours with a presumed public or collective utility.

1997: Extension [is] the organized exchange of information and the purposive transfer of skills.

1999: The essence of agricultural extension is to facilitate interplay and nurture synergies within a total information system involving agricultural research, agricultural education and a vast complex of information-providing businesses.

2004: Extension [is] a series of embedded communicative interventions that are meant, among others, to develop and/or induce innovations which supposedly help to resolve (usually multi-actor) problematic situations.

Origins of agricultural extension

Men and women have been growing crops and raising livestock for approximately 10,000 years. Throughout this period, farmers have continually adapted their technologies, assessed the results, and shared what they have learned with other members of the community. Most of this communication has taken the form of verbal explanations and practical demonstrations, but some information took a more durable form as soon as systems of writing were developed. Details of agricultural practices have been found in records from ancient Egypt

Ancient Egypt

Ancient Egypt was an ancient civilization of Northeastern Africa, concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile River in what is now the modern country of Egypt. Egyptian civilization coalesced around 3150 BC with the political unification of Upper and Lower Egypt under the first pharaoh...

, Mesopotamia

Mesopotamia

Mesopotamia is a toponym for the area of the Tigris–Euphrates river system, largely corresponding to modern-day Iraq, northeastern Syria, southeastern Turkey and southwestern Iran.Widely considered to be the cradle of civilization, Bronze Age Mesopotamia included Sumer and the...

and China going back more than 3,000 years.

It is not known where or when the first extension activities took place. It is known, however, that Chinese officials were creating agricultural policies, documenting practical knowledge, and disseminating advice to farmers at least 2,000 years ago. For example, in approximately 800 BC, the minister responsible for agriculture under one of the Zhou dynasty

Zhou Dynasty

The Zhou Dynasty was a Chinese dynasty that followed the Shang Dynasty and preceded the Qin Dynasty. Although the Zhou Dynasty lasted longer than any other dynasty in Chinese history, the actual political and military control of China by the Ji family lasted only until 771 BC, a period known as...

emperors organized the teaching of crop rotation

Crop rotation

Crop rotation is the practice of growing a series of dissimilar types of crops in the same area in sequential seasons.Crop rotation confers various benefits to the soil. A traditional element of crop rotation is the replenishment of nitrogen through the use of green manure in sequence with cereals...

and drainage to farmers. The minister also leased equipment to farmers, built grain stores and supplied free food during times of famine.

The birth of the modern extension service has been attributed to events that took place in Ireland in the middle of the 19th century. Between 1845–51 the Irish potato crop was destroyed by fungal diseases and a severe famine occurred (see Great Irish Famine). The British Government arranged for "practical instructors" to travel to rural areas and teach small farmer how to cultivate alternative crops. This scheme attracted the attention of government officials in Germany, who organized their own system of traveling instructors. By the end of the 19th century, the idea had spread to Denmark, Netherlands, Italy, and France.

The term "university extension" was first used by the Universities of Cambridge

University of Cambridge

The University of Cambridge is a public research university located in Cambridge, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest university in both the United Kingdom and the English-speaking world , and the seventh-oldest globally...

and Oxford

University of Oxford

The University of Oxford is a university located in Oxford, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest surviving university in the world and the oldest in the English-speaking world. Although its exact date of foundation is unclear, there is evidence of teaching as far back as 1096...

in 1867 to describe teaching activities that extended the work of the institution beyond the campus. Most of these early activities were not, however, related to agriculture. It was not until the beginning of the 20th century, when colleges in the United States started conducting demonstrations at agricultural shows and giving lectures to farmer’s clubs, that the term "extension service" was applied to the type of work that we now recognize by that name.

In the United States, the Hatch Act of 1887

Hatch Act of 1887

The Hatch Act of 1887 gave federal funds, initially of $15,000 each, to state land-grant colleges in order to create a series of agricultural experiment stations, as well as pass along new information, especially in the areas of soil minerals and plant growth...

established a system of agricultural experiment station

Agricultural experiment station

An agricultural experiment station is a research center that conducts scientific investigations to solve problems and suggest improvements in the food and agriculture industry...

s in conjunction with each state's land-grant university

Land-grant university

Land-grant universities are institutions of higher education in the United States designated by each state to receive the benefits of the Morrill Acts of 1862 and 1890....

, and the Smith-Lever Act of 1914

Smith-Lever Act of 1914

The Smith–Lever Act of 1914 is a United States federal law that established a system of cooperative extension services, connected to the land-grant universities, in order to inform people about current developments in agriculture, home economics, and related subjects. The Smith–Lever Act of 1914 is...

created a system of cooperative extension to be operated by those universities in order to inform people about current developments in agriculture, home economics, and related subjects.

Four generations of extension in Asia

The development of extension services in modern Asia has differed from country to country. Despite the variations, it is possible to identify a general sequence of four periods or "generations":

Colonial agriculture: Experimental stations were established in many Asian countries by the colonial
Colonialism
Colonialism is the establishment, maintenance, acquisition and expansion of colonies in one territory by people from another territory. It is a process whereby the metropole claims sovereignty over the colony and the social structure, government, and economics of the colony are changed by...

powers. The focus of attention was usually on export crops such as rubber
Rubber
Natural rubber, also called India rubber or caoutchouc, is an elastomer that was originally derived from latex, a milky colloid produced by some plants. The plants would be ‘tapped’, that is, an incision made into the bark of the tree and the sticky, milk colored latex sap collected and refined...

, tea
Tea
Tea is an aromatic beverage prepared by adding cured leaves of the Camellia sinensis plant to hot water. The term also refers to the plant itself. After water, tea is the most widely consumed beverage in the world...

, cotton
Cotton
Cotton is a soft, fluffy staple fiber that grows in a boll, or protective capsule, around the seeds of cotton plants of the genus Gossypium. The fiber is almost pure cellulose. The botanical purpose of cotton fiber is to aid in seed dispersal....

and sugar
Sugar
Sugar is a class of edible crystalline carbohydrates, mainly sucrose, lactose, and fructose, characterized by a sweet flavor.Sucrose in its refined form primarily comes from sugar cane and sugar beet...

. Technical advice was provided to plantation
Plantation
A plantation is a long artificially established forest, farm or estate, where crops are grown for sale, often in distant markets rather than for local on-site consumption...

managers and large landowners. Assistance to small farmers who grew subsistence crops was rare, except in times of crisis.

Diverse top-down extension: After independence, commodity-based extension services emerged from the remnants of the colonial system, with production targets established as part of five-year development plans. In addition, various schemes were initiated to meet the needs of small farmers, with support from foreign donors.

Unified top-down extension: During the 1970s and ‘80s, the Training and Visit system (T&V) was introduced by the World Bank
World Bank
The World Bank is an international financial institution that provides loans to developing countries for capital programmes.The World Bank's official goal is the reduction of poverty...

. Existing organizations were merged into a single national service. Regular messages were delivered to groups of farmers, promoting the adoption of "Green Revolution
Green Revolution
Green Revolution refers to a series of research, development, and technology transfer initiatives, occurring between the 1940s and the late 1970s, that increased agriculture production around the world, beginning most markedly in the late 1960s....

" technologies.

Diverse bottom-up extension: When World Bank funding came to an end, the T&V system collapsed in many countries, leaving behind a patchwork of programmes and projects funded from various other sources. The decline of central planning, combined with a growing concern for sustainability
Sustainability
Sustainability is the capacity to endure. For humans, sustainability is the long-term maintenance of well being, which has environmental, economic, and social dimensions, and encompasses the concept of union, an interdependent relationship and mutual responsible position with all living and non...

and equity, has resulted in participatory methods gradually replacing top-down approaches.

The fourth generation is well established in some countries, while it has only just begun in other places. While it seems likely that participatory approaches will continue to spread in the next few years, it is impossible to predict the long-term future of extension. Compared to 20 years ago, agricultural extension now receives considerably less support from donor agencies. Among academics working in this field, some have recently argued that agricultural extension needs to be reinvented as a professional practice. Other authors have abandoned the idea of extension as a distinct concept, and prefer to think in terms of "knowledge systems" in which farmers are seen as experts rather than adopters.

Communication processes within extension systems

The term "extension" has been used to cover widely differing communication

Communication

Communication is the activity of conveying meaningful information. Communication requires a sender, a message, and an intended recipient, although the receiver need not be present or aware of the sender's intent to communicate at the time of communication; thus communication can occur across vast...

systems. Two particular issues help to define the type of extension: how does communication take place, and why does it take place.

How communication takes place in an extension system: paternalism versus participation

Early books on extension often describe a model of communication that involved the transmission of messages from "senders" to "receivers". As part of this model, senders are usually people in authority, such as government planners, researchers, and extension staff, while receivers are usually farmers who are relatively poor and uneducated. Although this model might include something called "feedback", it is clear that the senders are in control of the communication process.

The transmission model of communication is closely related to the idea that extension workers are the link (i.e. message carriers) between researchers (senders) and farmers (receivers). Extension programmes based on this model has been described as "paternalistic"; in other words, the actors in the communication process have a parent/child or teacher/student relationship. Other authors have used the term "top-down" to describe these programmes.
In many countries, paternalistic extension is gradually being replaced by more participatory approaches, in which the knowledge and opinions of farmers is considered to be just as important as that of researchers or government officials. Participatory approaches involve information-sharing and joint decision-making. The terms "interactive" and "bottom-up" have been used to describe these approaches.

The development of participatory extension requires a re-examination of the communication process. At the present time, no single description has replaced the transmission model that is referred to above, but two ideas are becoming widely accepted:

Communication in the context of participatory extension cannot usefully be described in a linear manner with distinct groups of senders and receivers. Instead, extension activities take place within a knowledge system consisting of many actors who play different roles at different times.
Although some actors in the knowledge system have more authority than others, communication usually involves a negotiation rather than a transmission. What takes place is a dialogue, with actors collaborating in the construction of shared meanings rather than simply exchanging information.

The related, but separate field of agricultural communication

Agricultural communication

Agricultural communication is a field of study and work that focuses on communication about agricultural related information among agricultural stakeholders and between agricultural and non-agricultural stakeholders. It is done formally and informally by agricultural extension and is considered a...

has emerged to contribute to in-depth examinations of the communication processes among various actors within and external to the agricultural system. This field would refer to the participatory extension model as a form of public relations rooted two-way symmetrical communication based on mutual respect, understanding, and influence between an organization and its stakeholders (publics).

Why communication takes place: persuasion versus education

Although extension programmes have many different goals, most programmes fall into one of two basic categories:

systems of communication that aim to change the behaviour of rural people
systems of communication that aim to change the knowledge of rural people

There is, of course, a close relationship between knowledge and behaviour; changes in the former often lead to a change in the latter.

If government policy-makers, project managers or researchers direct the topics addressed and projects undertaken, then the purpose of extension is to change behaviour. This approach to extension has been variously described as directive extension, social marketing
Social marketing
Social marketing is the systematic application of marketing, along with other concepts and techniques, to achieve specific behavioral goals for a social good. Social marketing can be applied to promote merit goods, or to make a society avoid demerit goods and thus to promote society's well being as...

and propaganda
Propaganda
Propaganda is a form of communication that is aimed at influencing the attitude of a community toward some cause or position so as to benefit oneself or one's group....

.

If farmers and other rural people direct the extension towards their own needs, then the purpose of extension is changing knowledge. This knowledge helps rural people make their own decisions regarding farming practices. This approach to extension is closely related to non-formal education and conscientization.

Four paradigms of agricultural extension

Any particular extension system can be described both in terms of both how communication takes place and why it takes place. It is not the case that paternalistic systems are always persuasive, nor is it the case that participatory projects are necessarily educational. Instead there are four possible combinations, each of which represents a different extension paradigm, as follows:

Technology Transfer (persuasive+paternalistic). This paradigm was prevalent in colonial times, and reappeared in the 1970s and 1980s when the Training and Visit system was established across Asia. Technology transfer involves a top-down approach that delivers specific recommendations to farmers about the practices they should adopt.

Advisory work (persuasive+participatory). This paradigm can be seen today where government organisations or private consulting companies respond to farmers enquiries with technical prescriptions. It also takes the form of projects managed by donor agencies and NGOs that use participatory approaches to promote pre-determined packages of technology.

Human Resource Development (educational+paternalistic). This paradigm dominated the earliest days of extension in Europe and North America, when universities gave training to rural people who were too poor to attend full-time courses. It continues today in the outreach activities of colleges around the world. Top-down teaching methods are employed, but students are expected to make their own decisions about how to use the knowledge they acquire.

Facilitation for empowerment
Empowerment
Empowerment refers to increasing the spiritual, political, social, racial, educational, gender or economic strength of individuals and communities...

(educational+participatory). This paradigm involves methods such as experiential learning
Experiential learning
Experiential learning is the process of making meaning from direct experience. Simply put, Experiential Learning is learning from experience. The experience can be staged or left open. Aristotle once said, "For the things we have to learn before we can do them, we learn by doing them." David A...

and farmer-to-farmer exchanges. Knowledge is gained through interactive processes and the participants are encouraged to make their own decisions. The best know examples in Asia are projects that use Farmer Field Schools (FFS) or participatory technology development
Participatory technology development
Participatory technology development is an approach to learning and innovation that is used in international development as part of projects and programmes relating to sustainable agriculture...

(PTD).

It must be noted that there is some disagreement about whether or not the concept and name of extension really encompasses all four paradigms. Some experts believe that the term should be restricted to persuasive approaches, while others believe it should only be used for educational activities. Paulo Freire

Paulo Freire

Paulo Reglus Neves Freire was a Brazilian educator and influential theorist of critical pedagogy.-Biography:...

has argued that the terms ‘extension’ and ‘participation’ are contradictory. There are philosophical reasons behind these disagreements. From a practical point of view, however, communication processes that conform to each of these four paradigms are currently being organized under the name of extension in one part of the world or another. Pragmatically, if not ideologically, all of these activities are agricultural extension.

Extension methods

Compact area group approach (CAGA) is an innovative extension approach developed by Dr.K. Abdul Kareem, an agricultural extensionist of India to combat problems like coconut eryophyid mite in states like Kerala

Creative Extension

Creative Extension

The ]] under Kerala Agricultural University near Taliparamba has pioneered a new branch of agricultural extension called “creative extension”.-What is Creative Extension:...

is a new branch of agricultural extension pioneered by the Krishi Vigyan Kendra, Kannur under Kerala Agricultural University

Kerala Agricultural University

Kerala Agricultural University is the primary and the principal instrumentality of the Kerala state in providing human resources, and skills and technology, required for the sustainable development of its agriculture, defined broadly encompassing all production activities based on land and water,...

. Creative Extension