Good Practice on Capacity Development for Agricultural Innovation Systems. Virtual Rural Extension to Challenge Frontiers

The problems of family businesses transcend borders, scales, environments, and areas. Within the agricultural sector, family businesses represent 80 percent of the productive units that contribute to the economic development of Argentina and Uruguay. This initiative forms a virtual community where the target audience is the owners, partners, founders, advisors, managers, potential successors, and anyone interested in issues related to the family businesses, without distinction of gender or age, in the agricultural sector of these countries.

This note collects the experience of a virtual rural extension initiative that commenced at the start of 2021, from a virtual meeting of the network Extensión para Extensionistas about the challenges of agricultural family businesses. After the event, the Agricultural Plan Institute of Uruguay proposes a joint activity with INTA Argentina and Extensión para Extensionistas, and it is agreed to hold virtual meetings for producers and professionals around the same topic. This note describes the context of the experience, objectives, methodology, results, challenges and learning to encourage its adaptation and replication in other contexts.