Agricultural extension is in a great transition worldwide. The demand for public extension reform is greater than ever before. The agriculture knowledge infrastructure is evolving in a big way with the emergence of pluralistic extension actors and innovations to cater the needs of the farmeThis book is an attempt to document the past experiences and recent developments in the agriculture knowledge information systems. The compilation of 14 country s such as; Afghanistan, Benin, Cote d'Ivoire, Ghana, India, Iran, Mozambique, Nepal, Peru, Philippines, Trinidad and Tobago and Zimbabwe is intended to document the experience of extension systems. The fourteen country s highlight the worldwide agricultural extension reform measures (Decentralization, Privatization, Demand driven and Cost-recovery approaches), Institutional Pluralism (Public, Private, and NGOs) and Innovations (Farmer to Farmer extension, Participatory and Self-Help Group (SHG) approaches and ICT initiatives). The agricultural extension students, academicians, scientist, practitioners, administrators, and policy makers will find this compilation of extension experiences from the fourteen countries relevant for designing future reforms, advancing pluralistic extension system and also to integrating innovations in their extension approaches.

The lead farmer (LF) approach has been implemented and heavily promoted nationwide in Malawi since 2009 to support government extension workers and accelerate technology dissemination. Earlier reports have shown that donor-funded projects in Malawi widely adopted the LF approach, indicating positive roles and contributions of LFs. However, national data show persistently low rates of adoption of management practices being promoted by the LFs, prompting this study to look closely at the nationwide implementation and effectiveness of the LF approach. Specifically, we model the effects of farmers’ interaction with and exposure to LFs and farmers’ access to LFs’ advice on farmers’ awareness of and adoption of several promoted technologies and management practices. We use data from 531 randomly selected LFs linked to panel data from 2,800 farming households and, using correlated random effects, model the effectiveness of the LF approach on technology awareness and adoption. This is complemented by 55 focus group discussions and in-depth interviews with agricultural extension development officers (AEDOs) and service providers. Our results point to two major conclusions. First, LFs support and assist AEDOs in their work, especially in organizing community meetings and farm demonstrations, and are also an important bridge between farmers and AEDOs. But LFs complement AEDOs’ work rather than substitute for it. In communities without strong AEDOs and community leaders to work with and monitor them, LFs were not active or performed at a substandard level. Second, results show limited coverage and weak implementation and effectiveness of the LF approach at the national level. Only 13 percent of farmers reported receiving agricultural advice from an LF in the last two years, and only 20 percent reported having interacted with an LF. Our econometric models also consistently show neither the farmers’ exposure or interaction with LFs nor farmers’ access to LFs’ advice had an effect on awareness of and adoption of the major agricultural management practices being promoted. When heterogeneity and types of LFs are unpacked, results show that quality of LFs, adoption behavior of LFs, and regular training of LFs have strong and consistent effect on the awareness and adoption of most agricultural practices promoted.

Papers presented at the National Seminar on Alternative Extension Approaches in Technology Transfer, held at Trivandrum during 21-22 February 2004.

This is the first book to focus on farmer-led extension, drawing on the experiences of over 70 farmers, community workers, NGO staff, researchers and policy makers from throughout the world. A range of approaches to extension are discussed which include the campesino-a-campesino movement in South East Asia, 'problem census' approaches in South Asia, and information facilitation programmes in Africa.

Roy Scott here surveys the rise of agricultural extension education in the United States from the 1780s to 1914. He examines in detail attempts by the farm press, local agricultural clubs and societies, county fairs, and colleges to improve farming devices. Scott shows that these otherwise useful agencies and institutions all found it nearly impossible to convenice farmers of the value of science. There was a stigma attached to "book farming," and the abundance of cheap and fertile land strengthened stubborn convictions that new techniques were unnecessary and unwise. It remained for Seaman Knapp and several others to point the way through demonstration, to show farmers ways to more productive agriculture. The enactment of the Smith-Lever Act in 1914 provided legislative founding for the expansion of the demonstration method throughout the United States.