Group F6 Wednesday late morning discussion notes

Group members present for discussion

• Venkataraman Balaji
• Carl Eicher
• Mushtaq Gill
• Ken Giller
• Henry Kalomba

Background: Forepointer Group Recommendations for Investment

• Building national and regional market information systems ($10m)
• Rural knowledge centers ($40m)
• Reform of public extension systems in Africa and South Asia ($50m)

Notes from discussions

Theme: are current extension models working? Is reform possible?

Gen Giller

CIAT (International Center for Tropical Agriculture, http://www.ciat.cgiar.org) has done an innovative extension program involving Internet-based activities, but on a proof-of-concept basis

Mushtaq Gill

• The Agricultural Technology Management Agency (ATMA) model (http://www.manage.gov.in/NATP/atma.htm) has worked relatively well across several countries in South Asia – Nepal, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, India, and Bangladesh.
• There have been success stories with extension in Punjab (both India and Pakistan) and nearby Hariana, all major green revolution areas involving extensive irrigation.
• The Green Foundation (http://www.greenconserve.com) has been expanding contacts between extension and universities ...
• Also similar directions involving universities engaging in extension-related training in Pantanagar (perhaps the G.B. Pant University of Agriculture and Technology Directorate of Extension, http://www.gbpuat.ac.in/extension/extension.htm)
• TNV program ...
• Linkages from universities and research centers to extension began to deteriorate in the 1960's, in part due to recommendations by the World Bank and others, and around the time of the green revolution. Strong ties to research encouraged in the 60's by donors such as the Ford Foundation have not continued.
• The Rice-Wheat Consortium for the Indo-Gangetic Plains (http://www.rwc.cgiar.org/index.asp) is involving many CGIAR centers in revamping existing extension programs that have deteriorated

Carl Eicher

• There are at least three different models for delivering extension services (international NGOs, local NGOs, and current extension programs) and picking one model to scale up with massive donor aid is unlikely to be uniformly successful, while even undermining other models in some circumstances

Henry Kalomba

In Malawi, public extension models have collapsed for several reasons, due principally to resource constraints

• there has been no opportunity for refresher training
• personnel that have been attracted away to the private sector have by and large not been replaced
• transportation is very limited (some agents are issued only bicycles but have large territories)
• extension agents often need to devote considerable time and energy to their own livelihood, including raising their own food

As a result, farmers do not have access to extension agents and often don't even know them. Some progressive farmers have organized into clubs, often with support from NGOs and agro-dealers, who assist them in disseminating information about new seed varieties and the like.

Venkataraman Balaji

• In the 60s, extension was based on increasing production to bank against famine. Today farmers may have trouble selling their crops, and the emphasis needs to be on assuring their income, not just increasing production of crops that are in more abundant supply.
• Vegetable farmers farming on smaller plots can often earn a higher income than those raising traditional crops on larger plots. Companies are helping with extension advice – for example, the wine industry has been funding extension workers to encourage the production of grapes.
• However, this is a bit like putting pharmacists in the role of doctors – they have a natural incentive to prescribe more drugs
• Building links to university and other institutional (local, regional, and national) research centers would help to assure access to knowledge, but many universities don't seem to want this. There has been an apparent ban on the creation of private agricultural colleges – the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR, http://www.icar.org.in/) has to accredit new colleges and grant affiliations, but has not done so.
• There is very little coordination among NGOs at the local level, and they are typically not linked to the existing extension system
• Cargill has been successful in developing some training initiatives for extension
• With 100,000 extension workers in India and 25,000 in Pakistan it's hard to disregard the potential of involving the public sector (and India has had to import wheat again recently)

Mary Ochs (briefly joining)

We have been told stories of a shortage of funding at universities such that open agricultural faculty positions are not being filled

Others

That will tend to be the line used whenever prospects for major international donor support are under discussion ...

Mushtag Gill

There are more and more opportunities for private-sector training in Pakistan – short courses and the like – at the University of Lahore (http://www.uol.edu.pk/), the Aga Khan University (http://www.aku.edu/), and Allama Iqbal Open University in Islamabad (http://www.aiou.edu.pk/)

Ken Giller

• How can we move from programs that work at the scale of 5 to 6 villages to solutions that work for 5 million farmers? We need thousands of people in between.
• Knowledge-intensive systems require in-person demonstrations, not just computers
• We need a diffusion model that is not centrally controlled

this small-group discussion ended about 11:30, followed by a plenary discussion