Moreover, institutionalization of the state extension service has also created room
for other actors in the area of agricultural knowledge provision to get involved, such
as voluntary associations, the private sector, community organizations, farmers’
groups, and international development organizations. These actors vary in their
approaches – in who they envisage as clients as well as what their main aims are,
and details of these actors, their corresponding approaches and technical foci, are
presented in Table 11.1.
Commercial actors such as commodity corporations and seed companies willingly provide services and information related to their products. These actors follow
a vision which entails modernizing and commercializing agriculture by upgrading
the production capacity, productivity and profitability levels of medium-income
and better-off farmers, but show little concern for equality along gender and ethnic
lines, or for environmental protection (Beckman 2001; Barker et al. 2004).
In contrast to the conventional governmental approaches, and the focus of
commercial actors who focus explicitly on better-off farmers, international development organizations and NGOs have since the 1990s championed and introduced
participatory extension approaches such as Farmer Field Schools and Farmer
Livestock Schools, specifically aimed at improving the livelihoods of poor farmers
in remote and disadvantaged areas. The key goals of these approaches include
environmental sustainability, demand-orientation, participation and awareness raising (Dalsgaard et al. 2005; Van de Fliert et al. 2007; Hoffmann et al. 2009; Minh
et al. 2010). In addition, while their activities have access to more funding than
normal government extension programs, their scope in terms of time and geographical coverage is much more limited; therefore, internationally-supported models
of participatory extension have rarely been scaled-up to appropriate levels and
have thus remained unsustainable, a key reason being that they are developed
as ‘parallel systems’ which often ignore and undermine existing government
structures (Minh et al. 2010).
To sum up, despite the involvement of numerous actors, it is the local government which funds and has overall control over and ownership of extension
activities, leading to a strongly subsidy-oriented system owned by government
actors rather than farmers. This has an important implication in terms of shaping
the knowledge support coming from a system that is not so client-oriented and
instead understood as a wish-list, rather than one which communicates the idea of
jointly producing applicable knowledge aimed at stronger ‘demand-orientation’.
11.3 Demand-Driven Extension Delivery? The Broader Picture
Looking at extension approaches from an international and scientific debate perspective, one clearly has normative expectations and defines extension as the
mental help given for problem solving among individuals, families and groups.
11 Rethinking Knowledge Provision for the Marginalized: Rural Networks. . .
441
for other actors in the area of agricultural knowledge provision to get involved, such
as voluntary associations, the private sector, community organizations, farmers’
groups, and international development organizations. These actors vary in their
approaches – in who they envisage as clients as well as what their main aims are,
and details of these actors, their corresponding approaches and technical foci, are
presented in Table 11.1.
Commercial actors such as commodity corporations and seed companies willingly provide services and information related to their products. These actors follow
a vision which entails modernizing and commercializing agriculture by upgrading
the production capacity, productivity and profitability levels of medium-income
and better-off farmers, but show little concern for equality along gender and ethnic
lines, or for environmental protection (Beckman 2001; Barker et al. 2004).
In contrast to the conventional governmental approaches, and the focus of
commercial actors who focus explicitly on better-off farmers, international development organizations and NGOs have since the 1990s championed and introduced
participatory extension approaches such as Farmer Field Schools and Farmer
Livestock Schools, specifically aimed at improving the livelihoods of poor farmers
in remote and disadvantaged areas. The key goals of these approaches include
environmental sustainability, demand-orientation, participation and awareness raising (Dalsgaard et al. 2005; Van de Fliert et al. 2007; Hoffmann et al. 2009; Minh
et al. 2010). In addition, while their activities have access to more funding than
normal government extension programs, their scope in terms of time and geographical coverage is much more limited; therefore, internationally-supported models
of participatory extension have rarely been scaled-up to appropriate levels and
have thus remained unsustainable, a key reason being that they are developed
as ‘parallel systems’ which often ignore and undermine existing government
structures (Minh et al. 2010).
To sum up, despite the involvement of numerous actors, it is the local government which funds and has overall control over and ownership of extension
activities, leading to a strongly subsidy-oriented system owned by government
actors rather than farmers. This has an important implication in terms of shaping
the knowledge support coming from a system that is not so client-oriented and
instead understood as a wish-list, rather than one which communicates the idea of
jointly producing applicable knowledge aimed at stronger ‘demand-orientation’.
11.3 Demand-Driven Extension Delivery? The Broader Picture
Looking at extension approaches from an international and scientific debate perspective, one clearly has normative expectations and defines extension as the
mental help given for problem solving among individuals, families and groups.
11 Rethinking Knowledge Provision for the Marginalized: Rural Networks. . .
441