Agricultural extension reforms and institutional innovations for inclusive outreach in India

Abstract Reforms in the public agricultural extension system envisage a pluralistic extension system that is more broad-based and holistic in content and scope, beyond the transfer of agricultural technologies. The extension agencies, services, and workers need to exercise a more proactive and participatory role, serving as knowledge/information agents in which they initiate and facilitate mutually meaningful and equitable knowledge-based transactions among agricultural researchers, trainers, and primary producers. All this need to be done in an effective and cost-efficient manner. India has experimented with agricultural extension reforms and institutional innovations for reaching farm operators in the country. The broad extension systems in India are Field Extension System and Frontline Extension System. The field extension system is concerned with large-scale dissemination of agricultural technology to the vast number of Indian farmers by development departments and agencies, and the frontline extension system of Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) and State Agricultural Universities (SAUs) focuses on adaptation and demonstration of technologies and capacity building of the related stakeholders. A robust agricultural extension policy is essential for ensuring convergence in the pluralistic system to design stakeholders’ coordination mechanism and framework. If all the agricultural extension organizations are converged at different levels according to their relative advantage area, farmers will be motivated and mobilized to adopt better technologies provided by the coordinated and converged extension approach.