Extension and advisory services (EAS) perform an important role in agricultural development and help reduce hunger and poverty. Development efforts are increasingly complicated because of challenges such as natural resource depletion and climate change. Agricultural development frameworks have moved from a linear to a more complex systems perspective. Many scholars today use the agricultural innovation systems (AIS) framework as a conceptual model. This framework has three basic elements: all of the actors in the system that brings about agricultural innovation, their interactions, and the institutions and policies governing their interactions. Taking this approach while dealing with the challenges of development today implies new roles and capacities for extension. The authors discuss these new roles and capacities based on an action inquiry process of global dialog and consensus building, to present a vision for EAS within AIS, called the new extensionist (Sulaiman & Davis, 2012). The authors explore individual roles and capacities, and also those at the organizational and system level (Sulaiman & Davis, 2012). The authors discuss the importance of agricultural education in developing these roles and capacities, and bringing more knowledge to bear on the issue.
The report synthesises the research conducted under the PRO AKIS project for the topic "Designing, implementing and maintaining agricultural/rural networks to enhance farmers’ ability to innovate in cooperation with other rural actors". It includes a brief description of the five case...
This Guide to Evaluating Rural Extension has been developed by the Global Forum for Rural Advisory Services (GFRAS). The purpose is to support those involved in extension evaluation to choose how to conduct more comprehensive, rigorous, credible and useful evaluations....
The present case study investigated a policy-induced agricultural innovation network in Brandenburg. It focussed on three major questions: 1) What are features of the network that enhanced farmers’ ability to innovate in cooperation with other actors?; 2) What influencing factors encouraged the farmers’...
This paper reviews the extension curricula currently followed in universities in India at different levels in light of the new challenges faced by farmers, the new capacities needed among extension personnel to address these challenges, new trends in the job...
This report has the aim of contributing to the PRO AKIS overall goal of exploring and identifying the possibilities, conditions and requirements of rural networks to enhance the farmers’ ability to create, test, implement and evaluate innovation in cooperation with other actors.In...