While the global marketplace is cluttered with books and products about agriculture and related issues of development, very few speak specifically to agricultural extension and its practices worldwide. Agriculture is the main source of livelihood for a majority of rural people and is often referred to as the mainstay of the economy of the developing world. Agricultural Extension practices or advisory services as per usage in some countries provide a close examination of country-by-country approach. In the book, contributions are drawn from thirteen countries in four regions of the world. Furthermore, the editors list the countries alphabetically. The countries are Botswana, Cameroon, Canada, Ghana, India, Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania, Ukraine and the United States of America.The many contributors of the book at the onset explore the historical evolution of agricultural extension in their respective countries. For example, during the colonial era and prior to self-governance in several African countries, agriculture was the sole powerhouse that supplied raw materials to the industries of the now western societies. The effective connection between the 'colonial masters' and the search for rural raw materials was the agricultural extension worker. In one way, this book helps to connect the history of colonial and post-colonial Africa in the sustenance of agricultural development in Europe and America.Canada and the United States of America share a lot but also have many differences in their approach to agricultural extension. While America owes its origins to the land grant cooperative extension service with a mandate to state supported universities for the implementation of its programs, Canada traced its need for agricultural extension services to the adaptation of technologies to individual skills for expanded production for growing population (Hamby, 2019). Additionally, while Canada, at one time with reason, withdrew from public agricultural extension, the USA never followed that path since its inception of extension work in 1785.Formal law organizing the agricultural extension service sector in Ukraine is recent. Extension law of Ukraine was adopted in 2004 allowing for a robust participation of both public and private sector. (Windon and Zaburanna, 2019).The chapter on Ukraine provides insights to the understanding of this effort.The success of India's agricultural revolution could be traced to the resilience of local rural farmers who labored day and night tilling the soil in a sustainable manner. Indian and Pakistani farmers worked alongside extension workers in their respective countries to provide the advice and education that helped the transformation of the agricultural sector. Finally, there are two important points to make here. First, this book, while based on agricultural extension practices, provides a country-by-country comparative assessment. It is easy to read and a good narrative to follow. However, the comparisons are largely limited to the countries examined in the book. Second, the book allows us to review the success and failures of major institutions such as the World Bank, international development agencies and other donor organizations for their participation and recommendation to the efforts of countries involved in the practice of agricultural extension worldwide.

First published in 1987, Agricultural Extension Worldwide presents an international perspective on agricultural extension and highlights extension as an integral function of agricultural development. Agricultural extension is one of the largest nonformal problem-solving educational systems in the world. It is generally concerned with transferring knowledge and research to farmers but may include services to other target audiences such as farm families and rural youth, as well as serve for developing rural community resources. In sixteen chapters, various major systems of extension are discussed along with factors that make for their success or failure, including the linkages required and the policy and financial supports necessary to make them effective. This book is a must read for scholars and researchers of agricultural economics, agricultural policy and agriculture in general.

Agricultural transformation and development are critical to the livelihoods of more than a billion small-scale farmers and other rural people in developing countries. Extension and advisory services play an important role in such transformation and can assist farmers with advice and information, brokering and facilitating innovations and relationships, and dealing with risks and disasters. Agricultural Extension: Global Status and Performance in Selected Countries provides a global overview of agricultural extension and advisory services, assesses and compares extension systems at the national and regional levels, examines the performance of extension approaches in a selected set of country cases, and shares lessons and policy insights. Drawing on both primary and secondary data, the book contributes to the literature on extension by applying a common and comprehensive framework — the “best-fit” approach — to assessments of extension systems, which allows for comparison across cases and geographies. Insights from the research support reforms — in governance, capacity, management, and advisory methods — to improve outcomes, enhance financial sustainability, and achieve greater scale. Agricultural Extension should be a valuable resource for policymakers, extension practitioners, and others concerned with agricultural development.

The Million Farmers School (MFS) is an innovative extension program initiated by the Department of Agriculture in the state of Uttar Pradesh, India, in 2017. Twice in a year, the department deploys its entire extension machinery to organize nearly 15,000 training programs for about a million farmers across all districts of the state. Unlike traditional extension services, MFS integrates various facets of agricultural knowledge into a packaged product and delivers through village-level trainings where printed material on the topics of training are also distributed among participants. This study presents early findings of a process evaluation, involving assessments of program design, implementation strategies, and estimation of benefits from program participation. In addition to consultation with public officials and community organizations, a state-level representative survey was conducted on a sample of both participating and non-participating households. The early results based on matching and instrumental variable methods—suggest that knowledge outcomes are significantly better among participants vis-à-vis non-participants. The results are robust to different model specifications. The study also qualitatively assesses various aspects of the program’s design and implementation, highlighting the constraints and challenges it faces and offers implementation advice for greater efficacy in its future course.

Agricultural extension provides the critical connection from agricultural innovation and discovery to durable improvements at scale, as farmers and other actors in the rural economy learn, adapt, and innovate with new technologies and practices. However, lack of capacity and performance of agricultural extension in lower- and middle-income countries is an ongoing concern. Research on agricultural extension and advisory services (in short, extension) has been an integral part of the CGIAR Research Program on Policies, Institutions, and Markets (PIM) since its inception. This brief synthesizes key findings from research funded by and linked to PIM from 2012 to 2021, presenting lessons learned and a vision for the future of extension. A list of all PIM-related extension and advisory services research is provided at the end. Designing and implementing effective provision of extension is complex, and efforts to strengthen extension services often fall into a trap of adopting “best practice” blueprint approaches that are not well-tailored to local conditions. An expansive literature examines the promises and pitfalls of common approaches, including training-and-visit extension systems, farmer field schools, and many others (Anderson and Feder 2004; Anderson et al. 2006; Waddington and White 2014; Scoones and Thompson 2009). To understand extension systems and build evidence for what works and where, the “best-fit” framework, a widely recognized approach developed by Birner and colleagues (2009) and adapted by Davis and Spielman (2017), offers a simple impact chain approach (Figure 1). The framework focuses on a defined set of extension service characteristics that affect performance: governance structures and funding; organizational and management capacities and cultures; methods; and community engagement — all of which are subject to external factors such as the policy environment, agroecological conditions, and farming-system heterogeneity. To enhance extension performance and, ultimately, a wide range of outcomes and impacts, new and innovative interventions can be applied and adapted within this set of extension characteristics.