Publications

What can you show employees if you can't show them the money? The answer sounds almost simple-minded: Improved job performance and satisfaction. The poor performance of African national extension systems is often linked to the low educational level and dwindling motivational levels of most frontline extension personnel.

The management practices necessary for effective operation of extension services in Central and Eastern Europe have been reviewed. The difference in operational requirements between public extension and commercial consultancy services has been recognised. Then factors influencing the setting of clear aim, importance of stakeholders involvement in the preparation and operation of business plans, etc.

This publication from the FAO Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific (RAP) addresses the experiences of a training programme for disabled farmers in the poor north eastern region of Thailand.

The initiatives in this publication draw on recent agricultural extension reform measures introduced in several high-income, middle-income and low-income countries. The focus, however, is on reform measures that promote food security and poverty alleviation among small-holders in low-income countries. The initiatives are broadly envisaged as applications in the principals set out in the FAO/World Bank document on Strategic Vision and Guiding Principles (2000) for promoting Agricultural Knowledge and Information Systems for Rural Development (AKIS/RD), and other frameworks emphasizing the changing extension environment (Neuchâtel 1999). The AKIS/RD vision calls for institutional reforms involving pluralism, cost recovery, privatization, decentralization and subsidiarity, with an ...read more

For agricultural extension directors to guide their organizations through this demanding and difficult period, they will need to direct their attention to the main issues and concerns. They must concentrate the work of extension on those activities where it has a comparative advantage. For example, extension should focus its efforts on those knowledge-based technologies that are central to farmers' concerns and that will maintain the natural resource base. In general, these are subject-matter areas that will not be taken up by the private sector. Examples include dissemination of production management technologies that are specific to different crop and livestock systems; ...read more

A major challenge of the 21st century will be that of implementing sustainable development and meeting the food needs of an increasing world population. Technical experts from a range of disciplines have analysed the links between population and food and one of the conclusions reached is that, in view of the limited scope and high economic and environmental costs of expanding crop land, 80 percent of food production increases will have to come from increased yields on lands already in production.