This is Dr Mahesh Chander again, on the growing pluralism in agricultural extension services. Pluralism in agricultural extension services is showing an increasing trend. The private players, especially seed and other input companies like pesticides, fertilizers etc, are making efforts to reach out to farming communities primarily to serve their own interests by pushing their products. As also many industries, under their corporate social responsibility (CSR) programmes they are increasingly opting to serve farming communities. Also, donors/NGOs are trying to reach to farmers in increasing numbers. This means that the burden on public sector extension services is going to reduce. Since these new or emerging players would focus on specific groups of farmers, often neglecting marginalized or subsistence farmers, the public sector extension services can focus on subsistence farmers through personal contacts at least to provide hand holding kind of support to bring them up to the level where they can take care of themselves better. 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 Reference: Hybrid seeds maker Monsanto bets big, this time on agriculture extension. The Indian Express. 27 November 2014. http://indianexpress.com/article/business/business-others/hybrid-seeds-maker-monsanto-bets-big-this-time-on-agriculture-extension/ [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/ ######################################################################## To unsubscribe from the RAS-L list, click the following link: https://listserv.fao.org/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=RAS-L&A=1