During the last six years (2013-2019), the Agricultural Extension in South Asia (AESA) Network has served as a platform for collating the voices, insights, concerns, and experiences of people in the extension sphere of South Asia. Diverse professionals shared their concerns on the present and future of Extension and Advisory Services (EAS) in the form of blog conversations for AESA.
In early 2020, GFRAS provided support to the Agricultural Extension in South Asia (AESA) Network and the Bangladesh Agricultural Extension Network (BAEN) in order to customize one of the NELK Modules in the context of Bangladesh. The BAEN Executive Committee selected the GFRAS NELK Module 7 on ‘Facilitation for Development’ for customization. AESA and BAEN jointly implemented the development of the customized module for Bangladesh. The process of customization consisted of five phases spread over a span of six months.
En Cuba coexisten numerosas y variadas formas de extensión que tienen la misión de contribuir al desarrollo competitivo y sostenible de las formas de producción, lo que constituye un objetivo de trabajo en el campo del desarrollo económico y social. Partiendo de este concepto, el objetivo general de esta investigación fue analizar algunas de las formas de extensión que existen en Cuba por medio de estudios de caso
El Sistema de Extensión Agraria (SEA), es una de las formas de facilitar, trasmitir y conocer los saberes entre los productores, técnicos y decisores en las áreas de producción agrícola en Cuba. Se estudió el sistema de gestión de extensión agraria en el municipio Güines, provincia Mayabeque, con el objetivo de evaluar los factores que posibilitan la creación de un procedimiento integrado de gestión de la extensión agraria, basado en la colaboración de las formas de extensión y las entidades de ciencia e innovación que contribuyen al desarrollo agrario del territorio
Los objetivos del estudio fueron conocer la satisfacción por parte de los agricultores de los Servicios Científico Técnicos que se brindan en la actualidad y contribuir al rediseño del Sistema de Servicios Técnicos de apoyo a la agricultura en cada municipio, fortaleciendo el servicio para el control de plagas y enfermedades brindado por las Estaciones de Protección de Plantas (ETPP) y los Centros de Reproducción de Entomófagos y Entomopatógenos (CREE)
This brief explains the concept of gender equality in advisory services and discusses the opportunities that gender equality in rural advisory services can create for global and local food production, women’s economic empowerment, household food security, and nutrition. It summarises experiences of how gender equality can be pursued in advisory services and provides some practical examples.
There is renewed attention on the importance of advisory services and extension in rural development processes. This paper, based on the publication ‘Mobilizing the potential of rural and agricultural extension', focuses on five opportunities to mobilise the potential of extension and advisory services. The five areas are: (1) focusing on best-fit approaches; (2) embracing pluralism; (3) using participatory approaches; (4) developing capacity; and (5) ensuring long-term institutional support.
This review of literature on evaluation methods focuses specifically on approaches and methodologies in evaluation which are relevant for evaluating initiatives in extension or rural advisory services. The context and scope of the review are discussed, followed by sections addressing the purposes, users and uses of evaluation, evaluation standards and criteria, approaches, rigour and attribution.
Agricultural extension and advisory services (EAS) are often mentioned as a promising platform for the delivery of nutrition knowledge and practices, due to the close interaction that EAS agents have with farmers through their role as service providers in rural areas. Yet the context in which any nutrition knowledge is delivered by EAS agents, and the mechanisms for doing so, is unclear. The purpose of this study was to examine the integration of nutrition and agricultural EAS in Africa, South Asia, and Latin America and the Caribbean.
Though research on communication and innovation during the last decade brought better understanding on the innovation process, this has not influenced the underlying paradigm and practice of Extension and Advisory Services (EAS) in most countries. At the same time there have been few initiatives that tried to experiment with new ways of developing capacities for extension and innovation.