Reply for earlier blog on ....CHANGES NEEDED.....Agricultural Extension....

Dear Sir,

Only giving thanks was not enough for Dr. Anne Van den Ban’s valuable article. Sorry for that day that I could not express my view about the article. It was because for such a valuable article actually i needed a time to think about it and to understand it completely

Sir I personally feel that Dr Van den ban has done a great job by raising the question about the need for the women extension agent and you have awaken us , dormant youngsters by spreading such a valuable article.

Sir after coming here in north India I have experienced that some where there’s need for a female extension agent more than a man. The reason behind is their is lots of gender gap in our society especially in northern India, when some male member came to village areas many women don’t show their face they keep on hide their face under the veil but to a women they don’t have any hesitation to show their face and they willingly participate in any kind of programme. Moreover, women has more ability to convince the people whether technically or emotionally though they have little problem in going here and there but the word WILL POWER compensate it. If the person has the will to do her work willingly he /his does it in any situation. So here comes the role of “Motivation” which is very important for any extension agent and to motivate the future extension agents is the prior duty of senior extension agents and teachers.

If we really have to develop our nation we need to work on grass root level for this we should try to educate each and every female member especially where there is lots of castism.

Sir, When we talk about farm production and export problem I have seen it by myself in own community (Arunachal Pradesh especially Adi tribal community) their is lot of production of crops like oranges, ginger, bhoot jolokia (the world hottest chilli) but farmer don’t not have any idea where to sell it and how to preserve it. They just sell it to some brokers/ middlemen with very cheap penny. However, I have great expectations from the CAU and SAUs/ICAR that they (including myself) will help our farmers to solve this problem. These innocent people don’t have any regretness that how much they are putting their effort in growing these crops because they have been doing this since their childhood…...

If we solve the problems of every State ultimately we will solve the problems of our Nation……..

Sir, these were just a simple view from a growing up young extension professional….

Thank you

Ms. Nanang Tamut

M.Sc in Home Science Extension Education

C.S.A. University of Agriculture and Technology, Kanpur.

Reply for earlier blog on ....CHANGES NEEDED ....

Dear Dr. Saravanan
Thank you for your mail and the informative paper you sent along it. I read the paper thoroughly and wondered how Dr van den Ban could be able to integrate different perspectives into a small paper like this. It is a very good analysis of existing extension system at a 'macro level'. However, the problem lies in the 'micro-perspective'.
It is a known fact that we are being blamed for 'stagnation of technologies' at the research establishments. Though such accusations are 'harsh' from our point of view, there is some 'truth' behind them. Over the years, we excelled as 'extension workers', by implementing new perspectives like 'participatory', 'single window', 'communication technology', entrepreneurship etc, in our work. But we failed to understand the 'science' behind each perspective which halted the growth of extension science. At large, we tend to be obsessed with 'macro-level' 'innovative thoughts' and 'practical philosophies'. We strongly believed that the agricultural systems are so complex, so the success of any technology intervention is affected by several macro-factors like globalization, etc. We relied on several participatory strategies to understand these complex systems, however, results of them can only be confined to the area where they were implemented. We never believed that such complex systems could be 'segmented' to identify 'homogenous' groups, so that technology interventions can be 'tailored' to achieve tangible impacts. Such approach not only helps us to achieve the 'desirable behavioral change', but also improves 'generalizability' of our work. The 'generalizability' is the major factor which contributes to advancement of knowledge and growth of the discipline.
On the other hand, the 'marketing scientists' who also work to achieve desirable impacts, have shown how the innovative quantitative research tools could be implemented at the rural areas to achieve tangible outputs. They proved that the so called 'heterogeneous complex' rural social systems can be 'segmented' into homogenous groups and technologies can be 'tailored' to their needs and conditions to achieve maximum impact. They developed a strong outcome oriented research discipline. This is where our extension discipline has failed.
At large, our programmes lack 'strong strategy' which is logically derived from empirical data about the population we intend to serve. This is evident from the fact that most of the adoption studies published in peer reviewed international journals are by the agricultural/development economists or social/ cognitive psychologists. The economists with their 'choice models' and the psychologists with their 'socio-cognitive technology acceptance models' proved that 'behavioral change' can be achieved by applying the scientific approach. They beautifully integrated quantitative approaches with their qualitative counter-parts to develop a strong research discipline of their own. I strongly recommend the extension professionals to read books on Strategic Marketing to understand the science of achieving behavioral changes (agri or health technology adoption/ capacity building/ empowerment/ economic development/ etc) by implementing a structured approach.
Regarding Dr. Ban's paper, the issues he highlighted like facilitating active learning processes, information and knowledge brokering, developing local organizations etc are application-oriented concepts which are more relevant to the present context. However, incorporating them directly into the curriculum will lead to confusion. I strongly believe that the extension curriculum must stick to the basics. More focus on the recent developments in the sociology, psychology (esp theories of social and cognitive psychology), educational technology (esp instructional design), psychometrics (with Item response theory, multivariate models and structural equation models etc.), econometrics (especially choice theories), agricultural finance & marketing (esp market identification, strategy development, segmentation etc.) and computer applications (esp multimedia softwares, testing - alpha, beta etc.) along with the areas suggested by Dr. BAN will help the extension professionals to develop a strong research discipline.
In simple words, if we focus on applying scientific approach at a 'micro-level' to achieve 'desirable' objectives, we will be able to understand the 'macro' perspectives and will also be able to quantify their impacts on extension clientele. Such objective approach will help us to generalize our findings on a larger scale, which helps in advancement of the extension research discipline. Besides contributing to theory development, it will also provide strong and empirically validated models for the extension workers who work at the field level.
These are my opinions about the state of extension discipline and my thoughts on improving the 'research state' of our profession. I never intend to downplay achievements of our stalwarts and dedicated scientists who contributed to the growth of this discipline. Please feel free to share your views which will help us to collectively contribute to the growth of extension discipline in the future.
Thank you once again for sending me a thought-provoking paper and request you to share any other resources of the same kind.

Sincerely

PS Sivakumar

Scientist, ICAR

Reply for earlier blog on ....CHANGES NEEDED IN THE TEACHING OF AGRICULTURAL EXTENSIONEDUCATION....

Dear Dr Saravanan
Thank you very much for sending one of the Chapters of a Book published by Dr van den Ban. Dr Ban has given a very strong evidence for bringing change in the system of imparting education in Extension Education in India.
I personally have been feeling that the way students in extension education are trained at the PG level, is not what the employer wants. Any way there has to be some basic courses, then preparing the students in terms of whether he (she) would like to be a teacher in Extension Education, Researcher, or Field extension. At present Degree in Extension Education is easily available (not earned).
As President of the ISEE, I had raised this issue during my addresses in the Society Seminars but nothing tangible could be done due to a cold response. I think the root cause of the present scenario is mediocrity amongst the teachers and also the students.

Dr Ban has also raised the issue whether we need women extension workers for reaching the women farmers? Are their supportive research outcomes from Indian conditions? Already there are a far greater number of women students now in Agriculture/Vety. Streams, especially in the southern States.

It is time that the professionals in Extension Education go-in for in –house heart searching and bring out state-of-the art in Extension Education discipline. We need to stop proliferation of Institutes offering MSc & Ph.D Degrees. We need to consider what should be the minors and supporting. Instead of restricting to Rural Sociology/Psychology as minor, can we have essentially subjects like agronomy, plant protection, horticulture and so on as minor and essentially Statistics as supporting? There could be some other such combinations as well.

The research work for degrees is too preliminary without any experimentation. Single shot studies, with only social concepts, are not accepted by the scientists’ fraternity. Can we think of strengthening research? If yes how and who takes the initiative?

The earlier we do this; I feel it will be better. If we continue to be in the same rut, doom’s day for the discipline is not very far-off.
Those of us who have worked to build this Discipline, those who have/are earning livelihood from being in Extension Education need to think together.

Good luck

With regards
( Dr R. Parshad)
Former ADG ( Agr Ext), ICAR

CHANGES NEEDED IN THE TEACHING OF AGRICULTURAL EXTENSION EDUCATION....

Very recently, i had a opportunity to access and read one of the book chapters entitled "CHANGES NEEDED IN THE TEACHING OF AGRICULTURAL EXTENSION EDUCATION" by Prof. Anne van den Ban, The Netherlands (The book is entitled "Revamping Agricultural Education in the Context of Globalization" Edited by Dr. R.K. Samanta (2010) and published by B.R. Publishing Corporation, 425, Nimri Colony, Ashok Vihar, Phase IV, Delhi 110 052, India)

(To read article please click below link

http://library.wur.nl/way/index_ban.html or

edepot.wur.nl/142759

The chapter very interestingly argues that the "Agriculture is changing and hence, the Agricultural Extension & the way we teach Extension also need to change" . The Chapter provides lot of reasoning/ insights and arguments, which are much useful to the extension teachers/ scientists/ other agricultural extension professionals..many examples from India and questions posed for extension professionals in India...which is helpful to reorient the extension and also extension teaching ....

Let us think together to make eXtension discipline as a better choice for neXt generation......