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Moderated conference on rural advisory services for family farms: 1-18 December 2014

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"Moderated conference on rural advisory services for family farms: 1-18 December 2014" <[log in to unmask]>
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Dr Mahesh  Chander again, commenting on comments! 



1. Agree with Lisa Kitinoja (Message 55) and Ngouambe Nestor (Message 57) that an ideal extension system must build its strategy around a value chain. The farmers need extension support not only for production but for the rest of the processes like postharvest/processing including marketing. Also, not only the farmers but also the extension and advisory services need skills required along the value chain. 



2. Agree with Dr Datta Rangnekar (Message 22), when he very rightly says "select an appropriate message to be communicated to the underprivileged family". While using information and communication technologies (ICTs) for information delivery, we must know what message should be transmitted to what category of farmer, and when. Moreover, updating context-specific content is one frequent problem faced with information kiosks, village knowledge centres, farmers portals/websites. When using mobile phones, text messages are often irrelevant to subsistence farmers, so voice messaging is required that is also in the dialects they can understand well. The farmers are being bombarded with messages at times which actually they don’t need given their requirements and circumstances.

 

Sometime extension personnel speak to farmers or the message is delivered in such a way that the farmers fail to get it correctly. For instance, if we tell the farmers to apply 120 Kg nitrogen per ha in wheat or rice crop, they would not understand actually how much urea/number of sacks they need to buy and apply on their crops so as to make it 120 Kg nitrogen prescribed by the extensionist.



3. Dr Subhash Mehta (Messages 4 and 52) has conveyed one good message: That compared to government created cooperatives, farmer societies/producer companies/self-help groups can do well using the facilities of loans and technical support from various organizations including banks. We have seen many self-help groups (SHGs) and societies are coming up in different parts of India for different commodities viz milk, fruits, vegetables due to the self realization of the people. These groups are doing better than those which are thrust upon them by government under some schemes. The government must encourage, facilitate, support in technical assistance and make their way smooth by not interfering.



4. Message 43 by Dr SS Roy on "Need to revive the advisory service by banks in India" appears interesting but I wonder why banks chose to discontinue. In fact, efforts are being made on convergence so that duplication of efforts are minimized. Many organizations were found to be doing the same kind of extension activity in the same area leading to wastage of resources as well as confusion among the farmers as there was, and still, very little coordination among different agencies which are pushing their own agendas. How development agencies push their own agenda has been very nicely explained by Julie Nakalanda Matovu in her message 10. 



It's a good learning experience to be part of this e-conference, in an area which is dear to us - AGRICULTURAL EXTENSION !

 

Dr Mahesh Chander

Head

Division of Extension Education

Indian Veterinary research Institute, 

Izatnagar (UP) 

India

Phone +91 581 2302391, Fax: +91 581 2303284

Email: Mahesh64 (at) email.com



[To contribute to this conference, send your message to [log in to unmask] For further information, see http://www.fao.org/nr/research-extension-systems/res-home/news/detail/en/c/264776/  



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