Mobilizing the Potential of Rural and Agricultural Extension

The Global Conference on Agricultural Research for Development, which was held at the end of March in Montpellier, was intended as a watershed in redefining the role of research in rural livelihoods. The conference recognized that agricultural extension is an often overlooked but essential part of rural development.

DIIS Project Senior Researcher Ian Christoplos was commissioned by FAO and the Global Forum for Rural Advisory Services to prepare a publication describing what agricultural extension consists of today, and where its relevance is expected to lie in the future. The context for these changes is one of rapidly increasing investments in both research and extension efforts, primarily as part of responses to the recent food security crisis, together with fears about the future impacts of climate change and population growth on access to food. Though there is a recognition that more money is needed, there is also a concern that these investments may repeat past mistakes whereby farmers benefited little from research and programming rarely resulted in sustainable development of basic institutions. The extension investments of the 1980s have in many respects symbolized these rural development failures.

Extension is generally portrayed by agricultural researchers as being a basic tool for transferring research results to farmers. The paper questions these assumptions. It points out that extension services today are being provided by a range of public, private and farmer organization led institutions, most of which are not accountable to the scientific community. These extension agencies are as likely to respond to a supermarket demanding a new variety of tomato as they are to an international research institute. Researchers need to adapt to this new playing field if they are to find a more appropriate role in supporting rural change.

This paper presents the case for a very different kind of relationship between agricultural research and extension which recognizes that farmers and other market actors are making a range of demands on agricultural service providers, most of which are not about technology transfer per se. By critically reflecting on their relationship with extension and other rural institutions, researchers can learn much about the processes by which rural people are engaging with markets, adapting to climate and market uncertainty and even occasionally accessing scientific research.

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Mobilizing the Potential of Rural and Agricultural Extension