The analysis appreciates the fact that the pressure on extension services to meet pre-planned goals provides few incentives to incorporate women as an extension resource in themselves. Rural women have abundant potential for organisational and management skills. They operate channels of communication and hold indigenous technical knowledge of use in farming systems which are vital to the successful adoption of innovations. But the resources will remain untapped by AGRITEX unless it invests in overcoming some basic constraints. Bringing women into extension process is still problematic for AGRITEX's mainstream extension services. In short, working with rural production systems in Zimbabwe mew working with mostly women and training to reach them effectively. It is therefore the contention of this analysis that because women play an important role in agriculture, they should be integrated into mainstream development efforts. The economic rationale behind this approach is that the full productive potential of human resources both male and female, cannot be realised if women who make substantial contributions to food output and provisioning, do not have adequate access to resources, productivity enhancing inputs and services.
