TYPE OF EXTENSION SERVICE |
ORIGIN OR CHARACTERISTICS |
GENERAL NATIONAL EXTENSION SERVICES |
THE STANDARD APPROACH TO PUBLIC SECTOR EXTENSION WITH FIELD ADVISERY SERVICES PROVIDED FREE TO FARMERS THROUGHOUT THE COUNTRY. |
General agricultural extension |
The traditional form of extension dominant for the past 80 years. |
Training and visit extension (T&V) |
Debuted in the late-1960s as a reform of ineffective general extension services. |
Strategic Extension Campaign (SEC) |
Methodology developed by FAO to systematically incorporating peoples' participation into a national extension programme |
Extension by educational institutions, |
Especially for agricultural universities, can be the dominant approach to national extension. |
Publicly-contracted extension |
Services provided by private firms or NGOs on contract to government. |
TARGETED EXTENSION SERVICES |
APPROACHES THAT ATTEMPT TO AVOID THE HIGH RECURRENT COSTS BY FOCUSING EITHER IN TERMS OF SUBJECT MATTER, CLIENTS, REGION, OR TIME. |
Specialized extension services |
Focus efforts on improving production of a specific commodity or aspect of farming (e.g., irrigation, fertilizer use, and forest management). |
Project-based extension |
Focus increased extension resources on a defined area for a specific time period |
Client-group-targeted extension |
Focuses on specific types of farmers, usually on disadvantaged groups, e.g., small farmers, women, and minorities or disadvantaged ethnic groups. |
PRODUCER-LED EXTENSION SERVICES |
THESE APPROACHES INVOLVE FARMERS IN THE WORK OF EXTENSION DRAWING ON PRODUCERS' KNOWLEDGE AND RESOURCES. |
"Animation Rurale" (AR) |
Introduced in francophone Africa as a strategy to break the top-down pattern found in most development programmes. |
Participatory extension |
Harnesses farmers' own capacities to organize group meetings, identify needs and priorities, plan extension activities, and utilize indigenous knowledge to improve production systems. |
Farming systems development extension |
Requires a partnership between extension, researchers, and local farmers or farmer organizations. |
Producer-organized extension services |
Completely planned and administered by producers. |
COMMERCIALIZED EXTENSION |
THESE APPROACHES RELY ON COMMERCIALIZED EXTENSION SERVICES. |
Cost-sharing extension |
May be incorporated into any of the other extension approaches by requiring farmers to share costs of services. |
Commercial extension advisery services |
Becoming more common as the rationale for free public extension services is questioned and farmers find they need more dependable or specialized services than are available from public extension agency. |
Agribusiness extension |
Supports commercial interests of input suppliers and produce buyers who require or benefit from provision of sound extension services to support farm production and management. |
MASS MEDIA EXTENSION |
THESE APPROACHES SUPPORT OTHER EXTENSION EFFORTS OR PROVIDE INFORMATION SERVICES TO A GENERAL AUDIENCE. |
Mass media extension |
Provides pure information services tailored to a wide audience. |
Facilitated mass media |
Links mass media information services with field extension agents or farmer-extensions to facilitate discussion and understanding of issues. |
Communications technologies |
Allow people in rural areas to interact with specialists or specialized sources of information through rural telephone or internet services possibly institutionalized in "tele-cottages" for community access. |