Proceedings of the consultation workshop on market-oriented agricultural extension

RAP PUBLICATION 2011/02

Proceedings of the consultation workshop on market-oriented agricultural extension

Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific
Bangkok 2011

ABSTRACT

In recent years agricultural marketing has changed dramatically with a global boom in retail food marketing. Consumers are expressing greater concern for food quality and safety, and greater demand for high-value products. The future for many small farmers is bleak unless they can adapt their farming systems to these changes. Many of the constraints they face are related to lack of adequate know-how and skills. Market-oriented agricultural advisory services can play an important role in helping small farmers overcome these constraints and, in response, many countries in Asia are changing the content of their extension and advisory services. FAO has been at the vanguard of this shift and has developed a variety of training and extension materials in marketing and farm business management to better link small farmers to markets. This publication is a proceedings of a workshop held in Bangkok, Thailand from 11 to 13 May 2010 to raise awareness among heads of agricultural extension services of changes that are occurring and identify ways to meet these challenges by re-orienting agricultural extension services to respond to global and regional trends. The report contains summaries of the country papers as well as information on FAO training and extension materials available.

Table of Contents

Foreword
Introduction
     Objectives of the workshop
Market-oriented agricultural extension
     Market-oriented extension
     Market-oriented advisory services: global trends,
          challenges and lessons learned
     Re-orienting agricultural extension services to
          respond to global and regional trends
Market-oriented extension – country experiences
    Country papers
    Group discussion on issues
Training and extension materials
    FAO capacity building in agricultural marketing
    Capacity building in market-oriented extension:
        farm management
    Review of FAO materials and identification of gaps
Project profiles and follow-up activities
    Project profiles summaries
    FAO Technical Cooperation Programme (TCP)
Summary and conclusions
Annex 1 –Summaries of papers submitted but not presented
Annex 2 –FAO publications
Annex 3 –Programme
Annex 4 –List of participants

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The views expressed in this information product are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of FAO.

ISBN 978-92-5-106773-4

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For copies write to:	Agriculture and Food Systems (AFS)
	FAO Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific
	Maliwan Mansion, 39 Phra Atit Road
	Bangkok 10200, Thailand
	Tel: (+66) 2 697 4000
	Fax: (+66) 2 697 4445
	E-mail: [email protected]