FAO of the UN : Farm Management : Farm Management Extension

	Core Services
	Farm Management

	Farm Management Training
	Farm Management Extension
	Farm Data and Information Systems
	Integrating Environmental and Economic Accounting
	Livelihood Diversification and Enterprise Development
	Business Development Services
	Farming Systems
	Farm Management Research

Farm Management Extension

Changes in the size and role of the public sector, the growing involvement of the private sector and increased on farm commercialisation have placed new and challenging demands on farm management extension. As farmers become more market-oriented, extension needs are changing and extension workers face new challenges in providing appropriate advice.

Farm management extension as envisioned refers to informal adult education, but includes both formalised training programmes as well as coaching, mentoring and counselling practices.

Farm management extension can help farmers plan new enterprises; examine the suitability of new practices; identify changes that can be made to existing enterprises; compare different enterprises and identify the most appropriate; examine and compare farmers' practices over time. Technical advice is inadequate and farm management training is essential to understand the concepts and use of economic principles and practices as applied to farming. Understanding farm management and improving agriculture are important to extension workers as they assist farmers with information on changes in resource allocation and production technologies.

In order to understand the current status of farm management extension globally, a series of Expert Consultation workshops were held in Africa, Latin America, Asia and the Pacific as well as CEE countries and a number of reviews were produced:

Review of Farm Management in extension programmes in Central and Eastern European Countries, by M.J. Rolls

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The role of farm management in agricultural extension in the pacific islands, by A. McGregor

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Analysis of technical assistance and training services for production systems management. Selected experiences in latin America, RIMISP

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Farm Management in Extension in Africa

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Occasional Paper No. 21: Farm management extension services: a review of global experience

This Occasional Paper presents the findings of a global review of farm management extension services. The review was conducted regionally in Latin America, Africa, Asia, the Pacific region and Central and Eastern Europe. Some 50 studies were commissioned regionally, supplemented by the findings of a broader literature review, expert consultations and field project experience. The aim of the review was to assess the current status of farm management training and extension programmes; identify constraints and issues; review the performance and impact; and propose recommendations for the improved provision of farm management extension advice.

The publication is directed towards three major audiences: researchers and students, managers of agricultural extension services, policy-makers, consultants, development partners and financial institutions and development professionals from other fields who consider the case of agricultural extension services as an example of reforming rural services.

Participatory farm management methods for analysis, decision making and communication

Participatory Farm Management methods are simple tools which enable farmers and research or extension workers, to explore activities and the use and production of associated resources. The methods were developed by working closely with small-scale farmers in developing countries and have been successfully used in many countries. This document describes each of the methods i.e. Participatory Budgets, Scored Causal Diagrams, Resource Allocation Maps, Resource Flow Diagrams, and then provides examples of their use. Uses include for: participatory extension and development (introducing new practices and considering how they compare to existing practices in terms of activities involved, timing, and the use and production of resources); needs assessment (identifying and understanding problems farmers face); assessing the suitability of potential interventions (establishing how appropriate interventions are for different farmers and systems and how they can be adapted before starting on-farm research or demonstrations); conducting on-farm participatory research (planning, recording and analysing results); adoption studies (clarifying why farmers have or have not adopted practices and what impact they have had) and; studying farmers' practices and systems (e.g. research on farmers activities and use and production of resources). Recently there has been increasing interest in the application of participatory methods for larger scale studies and statistically based data analysis. The last section of the document considers this and presents some examples of scaling-up and analysis.

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Farm Management Brief

Farming for profit: an old idea coming of age

As market liberalisation and globalisation occurs farmers are increasingly having to compete to ensure profits. Farm business management skills and knowledge is widely regarded as important for farmers to effectively respond to the present day challenges that farming is all about. This requires the design of effective training programmes and the delivery of farm management extension messages. The critical policy challenge is how to provide farm management skills to small scale farmers in developing countries. This Brief describes the current relevance of farm management, explains the various elements involved as well as the framework required for programme design, implementation and evaluation.

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Farm Management in Agricultural Extension

While many farmers are now aware of the need to have marketable surpluses, simply increasing yields is not enough. Increasing agricultural productivity needs to be accompanied by farm management and farm business advice that can be given to farmers. The problem is that agricultural extension programs have not incorporated farm business management advisory services in their list of activities. Hence, the need for extension workers and agricultural extension officials to understand the need for such training.

This situation led the service to conduct a series of country reports on Farm Management in agricultural extension in countries in Asia . The countries that were included were Bangladesh , India , Malaysia , Pakistan , Philippines , Thailand , Sri Lanka and Vietnam . A final report was also produced synthesising the results of the eight country reports.

Final Report

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Bangladesh