This Annual Report contains a description of activities undertaken under iAGRI auspices from October 1, 2014 to September 30, 2015 and progress which has been made regarding achievement of iAGRI objectives. It also contains a discussion of results, outputs and preliminary impacts.
This document on Good Practices in Extension Research and Evaluation is developed as a hands on reference manual to help young researchers, research students, and field extension functionaries in choosing the right research methods for conducting quality research and evaluation in extension. This manual has been compiled by the resource persons who participated in the Workshop on ‘Good
In this blog, Bhuvana N and Aditya K S argue that to achieve sustainable transformation of global food systems, there is a need to promote systems thinking at all levels, research, extension, education and policy.
Undertaking Capacity Needs Assessment (CNA) is critical for organizing appropriate capacity development interventions. AESA organised four workshops on CNA of EAS in India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Nepal with the following objectives.
1. Identify capacity gaps among EAS providers
2. Finalise a methodology for undertaking capacity needs assessment.
During the period 2013-2019, the Agricultural Extension in South Asia (AESA) Network has served as a platform for collating the voices, insights, concerns, and experiences of people in the extension sphere of South Asia. Diverse professionals shared their concerns on the present and future of Extension and Advisory Services (EAS) in the form of blog conversations for AESA. Together, all of these individuals who are involved, interested and passionate about EAS, discussed ways to move beyond some of the seemingly intransigent problems that are hindering the professionalization of EAS.
This paper reviews the extension curricula currently followed in universities in India at different levels in light of the new challenges faced by farmers, the new capacities needed among extension personnel to address these challenges, new trends in the job market and advances made in the field of extension.
This guide is intended to assist facilitators in conducting a workshop with Extension and Advisory Service (EAS) providers for assessing their capacity needs. This guide has been compiled by the Centre for Research on Innovation and Science Policy (CRISP) for AESA with the assistance of a research grant from the Global Forum for Rural Advisory Services (GFRAS).
The author shares her experience of participating in a training that was organized by the Tropical Agriculture Platform – Agricultural Innovation Systems (TAP-AIS) project, ‘Developing Capacities in Agricultural Innovation Systems: Scaling up the Tropical Agriculture Platform Framework’, implemented by FAO’s Research & Extension Unit, funded by the European Union as a component of the ‘Development Smart Innovation through Research in Agriculture (DeSIRA): Towards Climate-relevant Agricultural and Knowledge Innovation Systems’ initiative.
Development is the process of change and facilitation helps in accelerating this process through the change agents‘ or the extension service provider. While working with farmers, agri-traders and processors, facilitation refers to promote group learning, building consensus and enhancing participation in collective actions. A facilitator has multidimensional roles to play.
In theory, under the federal structure agricultural extension services can serve communities better as it aims to be client responsive and accountable to its consumers at the village level. However, poor understanding of federalism that has only recently emerged from the persisting centralized and feudal conceptions, limited practices of democratic norms and values primarily due to the lack of understanding of local governance, and limited commitment of political actors and policy makers to federalism, may derail the good intentions behind federalism.