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

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Fri, 19 Dec 2014 16:44:36 +0100
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This is Ngouambe Nestor again.

As we are concluding our e-discussion, I want to share an approach developed in Cameroon to better tailor farmers' needs to extension/advisory services offered both by public and private sector.

When I evaluated an extension programme experienced by a private extension service in Cameroon in 2008, I realized that the skills and qualifications of extension agents or advisory officers has a significant impact on the message/innovation to be diffused. Most extension agents within the program had at least 15 years of experience in agriculture, but they had never actually studied agriculture because agriculture was not their initial profession. All they learned was by experience. That is why these extension agents were perfect during practical demonstrations but, during training courses, they were unable to meet the farmers needs due to the agents' incomplete comprehension of extension tools.

In the Northern part of Cameroon, extension agents were very good during basic level advisory services, but they faced many difficulties with more complicated aspects like accounting, because of their low level of education. That is why we agreed that it is very important to put more emphasis on skills and qualifications of extension/advisory workers. According to you what are the skills and qualification an extension worker needs to let him be very performant on field in order to meet farmer's need?

Based on these observations, in 2011 the Government with the support of French Development Agency, experienced a pilot training programme in some public school of agriculture. Because there is no specific training based on extension service, this programme aims to have specific young professionals with good skills in advisory service. The diploma obtained is called "Conseiller Agropastoral" (Agropastoral adviser). So those professionals during their two years of training focused their courses on extension and advisory services. Now, most of them are directly recruited by the Government to reinforce the National Agricultural Extension and Research Programme, in place since 1988. The first phase of the project trained about 2000 professionals in agropastoral advisory services. Now the second phase was extended to private college of agriculture and other vocational training in agriculture.

So, to have a prompt and efficient response to farmer needs, it is very important to pay more attention of skills and qualifications of extension workers. Because, as farmers, if I realize that the person supposed to bring more light to my activities is not able to help me improve my situation, I will not be able to ask for the services.

Ngouambe Nestor
Agricultural Extension officer
Ministry of agriculture and Rural Development (MINADER) Programme National de Vulgarisation et de Recherche Agricole (PNVRA) BP 46 Dschang Cameroun
Tel: +237 77 62 41 21 / 79 71 78 09
Skype: manuel.rayan
YPARD Cameroon team: www.ypard.net
AFAAS Cameroon Team: www.afaas-africa.org Cameroon Forum for Agricultural Advisory Services (CAMFAAS)
Blogpost:- https://ngouambe.wordpress.com
             - http://agriculture-infos.blogspot.com
e-mail: Ngouambe (at) gmail.com

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