Agricultural Extension: Good Intentions and Hard Realities

This article provides a framework outlining farmers demand for information, the public goods character of extensions services, and the organizational and the political attributes affecting the performance of extension systems. This conceptual framework is used to analyze several extensions modalities and their likely and actual effectiveness. The analysis highlights the efficiency gains that can come from locally decentralized delivery system with incentive structures based on largely private provision, although in poorer countries extension services will remain funded. The goals of agricultural extension includes transferring information from the global knowledge base and from local research to farmers, enabling them to clarify their own goals and possibilities, educating them on how to make better decisions, and stimulating desirable agricultural development.