My name is Maria Auxiliadora Briones, from Nicaragua. I am an economist and have more than 20 years of work in agriculture innovation systems in Latin American and as a consultant I have been supporting  the Ministry of Agriculture in many country to strengthen the rural advisory services as an important factor to changing the lives of rural families. I Have been a consultant of World Bank, IFAD, FAO, and other national institutions. 

I would like to  contribute to question 4.2 (What are the current gaps in rural advisory services for family smallholder farmers?):

Rural advisory services, in general, have always been relegated by the states budget for political and social reasons, especially because it is supposed that  the rural advisory services aren't giving fast responses to the agriculture sector problems. And they are less productive rural advisory programs and knowledge transfer because these less visible results by the considerations and vision of planners are prioritized. Family farming is no exception and indeed some of the gaps faced by rural advisory services in this case is the lack of funding by governments intended to serve this population. However, the priority given during the year 2014 to family agriculture, this is not reflected in the budgets of countries.

Another clearly identified gap is the use of unsuitable methodologies and tools for different types of producers involved in family farming that are mentioned in section 4.1, classified according to tenure, activity and destination of production, which itself can be inferred demand. Methodologies and tools for differentiated attention to counseling services may have the desired effect that their production units and other generators change in the lives of their families.

A third and no less important issue, is the lack of public policies that promote comprehensive care to family farming and identify clear and appropriate incentives to ensure rural advisory services for the needs of producers and their production systems. This involves ensuring planning systems in which clearly the role of producers and farm families in identifying the demand for services and participation in social evaluation or audit become visible - so what has been another of the large gaps that have been identified in the rural advisory services for family agriculture.

In this particular and in many countries, particularly in Nicaragua, one of the mechanisms used to ensure the inclusion of producers in the identification of demand are territorial consultation tables, or so-called "cabinets of production", convened by the national government, where different actors come together to develop regional development plans and identify the roles and demands, with particular attention to the institutions of the public agricultural sector. Despite not being an integral process and even biased public institutions and sectors of interest, it is a good start which leads to important lessons that can be taken up and enhanced joint planning processes and participation of producers to articulate demands of rural advisory services and ensuring social audit processes to ensure efficiency and quality thereof.

Structural problems such as the issue of under-capacity of extension providing services to family agriculture on the one hand and low levels of education of farmers involved in family farming, is one of the largest gaps in the framework. New development proposals should be considered to strengthen the impact of services on the lives of rural families, among others.
 
Maria Auxiliadora Briones
General Manager
Fundación para el Desarrollo Tecnológico Agropecuario y Forestal de Nicaragua (FUNICA) 
Nicaragua
http://funica.org.ni/index/ 
e-mail: mariaux2005 (at) gmail.com

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