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...
The paper defines and explains the concept of gender equality in advisory services and discusses the opportunities that gender equality in RAS would potentially create for global and local food production, women’s economic empowerment, household food security and nutrition as...
This presentation argues the need of green growth in agriculture, analyzes features of the innovation systems and ends with some policies practices. The presentation has been prepared for "Innovation and Modernising the Rural Economy", OECD’s 8th Rural Development Policy Conference, 3-5 October 2012 (Krasnoyarsk, Russian...
This paper was prepared to present at the Farmer First Revisited: 20 Years On conference at the Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex, UK, December, 2007. Its focus is the challenge of strengthening agricultural innovation systems. The paper prefaces...
The CDAIS ‘marketplace’ to promote agricultural innovations in Burkina Faso took place on 6 July 2017 in ouagadougou. It was a rich event involving more than 80 people who are working directly with, or interested in working with, different partnerships. The marketplace...