Agricultural Extension Services in Indonesia : New Approaches and Emerging Issues

Indonesian agriculture is at a crossroads. Supporting the livelihood of millions of Indonesians, it needs to underpin renewed and robust growth of the economy; and be a key component of the Government's poverty alleviation strategy. The challenge for the future is to reinvigorate productivity gains among rural producers, and provide the foundation for long run sustainability of these productivity gains. Productivity gains are key to farmer income growth, and for this rebuilding the research and extension systems that have seen a marked deterioration in recent years will be critical. The experience of the Indonesian decentralization of its extension system has been mixed, with adverse impact on extension through sharp reductions in funding, and removal of central-level guidance. At the same time, a series of positive debates and experimentation in management have taken place from a shift on top-down to participatory approaches, input and technology dissemination to dissemination of market and upstream information and technology, from centrally managed extension services to decentralized services, and some movement toward privatization of extension. In this context, an assessment of the agricultural extension services, as seen through the lens of the impact evaluation of the Decentralized Agricultural and Forestry Extension Project (DAFEP), was deemed to be timely and relevant. This report thus has the following objectives: i) provide an overview of the institutional changes in agricultural extension in Indonesia; ii) present the results of the impact evaluation of DAFEP; and iii) discuss lessons learned and emerging issues in the new political and institutional context.